We set out looking for the town of San Diego. There’s a marker for it on the highway, but no road to turn off on. We went another mile and turned into a road labeled Hacienda Buspol. The hacienda turned out to be yet another over-the-top restoration that is soon opening as guess what, a hotel. Very pretty. Orange. The caretaker had never heard of San Diego. We tried approaching San Diego from several angles, but it remains a mystery.

Then we went to see the hacienda of BG’s old friends, Arthur and Carol Pogue (RIPx2) in Telchac Pueblo. I was glad to see the place in good shape, as last year when I’d driven by, it was overgrown with vegetation and you couldn’t get down the driveway. A young man informed us that there were several people living there. His German Shepard tried to kill me.

If you remember Art and Carol, you know that Arthur was obsessed with neem trees. He got seeds and fledgling plants into the Yucatan any way he could and gave saplings away to all his friends. He extolled the health benefits of the tree, and also loved that it was a natural mosquito repellent.

Arthur and Carol both died some years ago and they left a hole in my heart. It was good to see the place somewhat taken care of, though it isn’t what it used to be. There were still hundreds of neem trees.

I have many happy memories of this place. I don’t know how many hours I spent there, sitting on the the second floor patio, looking out at the peaceful countryside.

About 16 years ago, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, got married there. I was one of the two bridesmaids. The bride had a gorgeous dress she had had made, but during the final preparations, she realized she’d left it in Merida.

Our friend Evelyn Serrano (RIP) was there in a gorgeous huipile. I asked her to come upstairs, telling her it was an emergency, and as soon as she entered the room, we told her we needed her dress. Without question, she took it off, and put on the clothes the bride had been wearing, which were a bit small. Evelyn hid behind a car for the duration of the ceremony, which was lovely. The place was in full bloom and Arthur had seen to it that the grounds were perfectly manicured. Hats off to Evelyn!

Arthur and Carol Pogue's hacienda near Telchac

Then we drove through Ixil, where they were recovering from their annual fiesta on April 30th. The bullring was still up, made of palm fronds and sticks.

The enormous Ixil church still has two of its six bells. There was a funeral going on inside and a woman was singing like an angel. A beautiful moment.

Ixil church

We drove past lots of healthy henequen fields. The one below is labelled strangely. My companion says it’s Japanese and I say it’s a few Japanese characters with scribble in between. Or perhaps the calligrapher had too much tequila. Any opinions?

Henequen that is supposed to be Japanese

Then we went up to the coast, to Telchac Pueblo, drove around and ate at our usual haunt, La Picuda. The fare isn’t great, but it’s your genuine, typical coastal village food. It was inexpensive and the people there are unusually nice.

Standard fried fish

The fish with garlic sauce was the standout.

Filete al mojo de ajo

A few merchants were on the pier selling things they’d made.

It was a beautiful day, with families playing on the pier and fishing boats bouncing in the choppy sea.

Of Eggs in Mexico. Chinese lies, and Whole Foods USA

Disclaimer: I’m just a consumer – not a public health authority of any kind.

BUT, there are certain things that I know are being sold mass market without interference by government agencies, either in Mexico or in the USA, that are toxic.

Eggs in Mexico

First, my pet peeve in Mexico. Eggs are not refrigerated either in stores or in transportation vehicles.

Salmonella loves eggs. Chickens may become infected with it and the bacteria gets into the egg while it is still in the chicken’s reproductive tract. Refrigeration keeps salmonella at a low level, not dangerous to humans. In unrefrigerated eggs, salmonella proliferates and can make us seriously ill.

In commercial egg production environments, most external salmonella is washed off the eggshell before eggs are packaged but the bacteria may already exist in the egg yolks.

Some people advocate not washing eggs at all, as they are hatched with a protective coating against bacteria. There is some validity to this for home-grown eggs unless, of course, the egg has been infected in utero.

Another approach, used by people who need to store eggs for months at a time, is to coat the eggs with vaseline to prevent critters and oxygen from crossing the shell barrier. Yuk.

The American FDA orders that eggs be certified not only to be stored under 45 degrees but also to be transported at under 45 degrees F.

This from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service:

Why should eggs be refrigerated?

Temperature fluctuation is critical to safety. With the concern about Salmonella, eggs gathered from laying hens should be refrigerated as soon as possible. After eggs are refrigerated, they need to stay that way. A cold egg left out at room temperature can sweat, facilitating the movement of bacteria into the egg and increasing the growth of bacteria. Refrigerated eggs should not be left out more than 2 hours.

I am not a COSTCO shareholder, but COSTCO is the only store I have seen in Merida that keeps eggs refrigerated.

Food produced or packaged in China

It is my belief that food labelling in China is fiction and that the information that is provided is simply to meet export specifications and has little relationship to truth.

Finding melamine in Chinese packaged baby food sold in the USA is the tip of the iceberg. (You may recall that melamine is a hard, flame-retardant plastic used for making durable dishes and other useful objects.)

IMHO, it is best to avoid purchasing any product whatsoever that is made in China. Paint is toxic. Toys are toxic. Critical parts of machines break like glass.

From CNN:

In June, the United States banned five types of fish and shrimp from China because inspectors found traces of cancer-causing chemicals and antibiotics in the products.

This seafood is shipped as frozen shrimp and is also widely packaged into fish products, like dumplings or full meals with a variety of contents.

The infamous milk poisoning disaster in China killed 300,000 babies there in 2008 and affected many more. The milk contained lethal doses of insecticides and preservatives. Melamine is also present in animal feed, affecting all meat, eggs and dairy products.

There is no single inspection agency in China answerable for the outrageous disregard for human safety in mass produced foods. They are still working on defining safety parameters.

Confiscated food containers, China

It’s often hard to tell whether a product is from China, as the information on boxes of prepared foods (in the USA) skips around this by saying the food in the box is “Distributed from”…Minneaplolis, San Francisco, etc. It does not say where it was made or packaged.

A few years ago, in an effort to stop buying Chinese goods, I noticed that Lean Cuisine, which I bought at Whole Foods (all that natural goodness) was Distributed in instead of Made in. Pain in the ass that I am, I wrote to Lean Cuisine’s corporate offices asking whether any part of the production of packaging process of their product was in China.

After a month, I received a response on corporate letterhead that began with something like, “Lean Cusine is a subsidiary of Nestle SA, a global company. China is one of our most important trade partners….”

Too bad. I loved Lean Cuisine, but I don’t want to eat melamine or poisonous disenfectants. Which leads me to one of my major disappointments in this industry, Whole Foods.

Whole Foods

When Whole Foods opened in Seattle, we were so happy. A safe, natural food store with natural products, an alternative to our dowdy little Puget Sound Consumer’s Coop, which didn’t always have everything we wanted. And it was so big, so shiny, and the fruit practically glowed.

Things have changed. I never shop there. The Coop (“PCC”) labels all produce and meat “locally grown,” if it is (and almost all of it is). At Whole Foods you take your chances and it’s full of Chinese goods.

And according to Reality Sandwich, Whole Foods has made a far-reaching deal with the devil recently by agreeing to purchase genetically altered and chemically treated wheat from the giant conglomorate Monsanto, which will affect not only wheat products, but animal feed and the entire spectrum of food products, including feed products that reach organic producers.

In what Reality Sandwich calls “a profoundly misleading email” to the public, marketeers at Whole Foods make a case for the “coexistence” of natural food producers and the megahuge producers like Monsanto. It is a new low in the art of marketing.

Whole Foods is a beautiful, immaculate store, fast spreading across the USA. It purports to sell mostly natural foods but it doesn’t. It does enough to be annoying, like just selling biodegradable toilet paper and organic dog food that costs as much as sirloin, but they do not guarantee, and certainly do not carry, all organic goods.

All the inexpensive, lovely produce looks like a cook’s dream. But the ginger is purportedly from China as are most of the melons and vegetables. They do not label products “locally grown” because consumers will notice how many products are NOT locally grown.

The PCC has enjoyed a resurgence. People who care about healthy food shop there and even at a few of the chains that label locally grown food. PCC has spiffed itself up and is becoming suspiciously enticing and attractive. We’ll have to keep a careful eye on them.

I don’t know what this is, but I liked it.

New Info Alert – see below

A sandwichon is a huge, multi-layered sandwich that looks like a strange cake. Only that stuff all over it isn’t frosting – it’s colored mayonnaise or cream cheese, depending on the chef’s preference. This covering is dyed with a bit of tomato sauce for a pastel effect. It’s decorated with peas, bits of carrots, and other tiny veggies – that’s the healthy part.

The creation is composed most commonly of layers of strawberry jam, cream cheese, sliced yellow cheese, ham, chicharros, and pate. Sometimes, people add chicken, tuna, egg salad, lettuce, pico de gallo, and I guess – whatever you want.

When you add lumpy things like cooked chicken or tuna, you put them through the blender first to puree them nice and smooth. Add a liberal amount of “media crema” when you do this, just to maximize the calorie content.

There is bread between each layer and the construction can grow quite tall.

Any of the layers (except perhaps the jam) of the sandwichon can be liberally soaked with the ever-present “media crema.”* You can add bits of mild pepper – just throw caution to the wind and be creative.

Apparently, the sandwichon is unique to the Yucatan. The actual word means one huge m.f. sandwich. Sources on the web claim that the sandwichon exists in Spain and some South American countries, but readers from those places comment on the blogs vehemently denying that their country has such a thing. One woman was highly insulted at the thought of pureed tuna with media crema. Such a snob.

The layers are separated by slices of white bread, preferably Bimbo. But some bakeries (La Perlita) make huge white bread slabs specially for sandwichon.

You can buy chunks of commercial Sandwichon at Chedraui or most of the major supermarkets, or you can have a heck of a good time making one yourself.People have brought sandwichons to my house several times for potlucks or holidays. To my amazement, I like it.

New Info on Sandwichon

Go to a site called Moms Miami and read about the Cuban version, the  sanguiche gigante. A wealth of information. I wonder which came first. Yucatan has definately developed the sandwichon further than the Cubans in Miami (the source of Moms Miami).

The Yenta, long fascinated with these things, has a compulsion to take pictures of sandwichons in the supermarkets. Sometimes the personnel ask me to put away my camera. Perhaps they worry that I will steal the secret list of ingredients. Here are a few of my favorite sandwichon pictures.

*Media crema. Does anyone know what this actually is? It isn’t sour cream or half and half.

Walmart sandwichon

International District – Thai and Vietnamese colonies in the diverse City of Seattle

There are thousands of people in Seattle from SE Asia. They have their own neighborhoods, houses of worship, societies, stores and restaurants. Sometimes I go to the ID and pretend I’m on a foreign trip.

Shopping in food stores is fun. Pomelos. Doomed crabs.

These crabs are awaiting death by boiling.

Hue Noodle Restaurant

There is always a line for this place. Everyone in there is Thai and on most of my visits, my friends/family and have been the only gringos. They make their own noodles – about six varieties.

These are their fried dumplings filled with cream cheese and crab.

Here is a combination dish with seafood, pork liver (!), greens and noodles.

Combo with noodles

The menus are in Thai and English.

Helpful illustrated menu

This place is so good, that whenever I want to go to the International District, I automatically revert to Hue and hope it isn’t too strange for my companions. So far, they’ve held up well. In fact, it was me who balked at the pig liver and gave it my brother Eric.

The restaurant is on S. Jackson, just north of 12th Ave.

Saigon Deli

Just up the street from Hue, is the very popular Saigon Deli, a Vietnamese take-out place. Always a line.

They have more varieties of spring rolls than you ever imagined, not to mention moist coconut and banana cake (in green or white), marinated pork roast salad with rice noodles and on an on. There is also a full assortment of hot food. The place is immaculate.

Chinese broccoli and tofu

We met a Haitian man in the Saigon Deli – named Pierre Louis. For $4.50, he purchased the fabulous take-out below. He says he goes to the Deli every day because the food is so healthy and delicious.

Desserts

The other weekend I went to Saigon Deli to pick up something to take home. I put a pork-noodle wrapped dinner in front of the man and he said $8.50. Then I added a big cup of rice flour custard and he said $8.50. And a small pack of shrimp spring rolls for the next day. $8.50, he said. I looked at him, he smiled and bagged everything and said, “Everything $8.50.” I should have gotten some coconut milk too.

Nordstrom Cafe redux

On the other end of the food spectrum, I can’t stay away from the Nordstrom Cafe at Northgate Mall.

This is Charlotte. She buys unadorned brim hats and makes accoutrements to sew on. She has about twenty such hats, and each goes with different outfits. Charlotte is a retired banker. The day I met her, she was lunching with a friend who had worked at the bank with her, and a younger woman who had met both of them there thirty years ago. They are still mentoring her. On this day in particular, they were giving her advice about men. What they were basically saying, was avoid them if possible.

Below is a picture of Nordstrom’s Cilantro Chicken Salad (ingredients below). I am not a salad lover, but this is magical. I always try to force myself to order something else when I’m there, but I just can’t.

This salad is much too complicated for me to make at home.

And here is my favorite lunch companion, Leah. She sang with a band for many years and has lots of stories. A beautiful woman. Leah comes from a gracious white family and her sister is a well-known TV actress. Recently she paid $400 to have her DNA analyzed and discovered she was 28% black. She is delighted.

Elsewhere in Nordstrom, we see shoes that make us glad we aren’t young.

Ingredients for Nordstrom’s Lemon-Cilantro-Chicken salad.
baby spinach
cilantro
young lettuce – the kind with the red veins
arugula
sunflower seeds
pumpkin seeds
fresh corn kernels
pieces, not chunks, of white meat chicken
diced cherry tomato
diced red pepper
kosher salt
black pepper

And a light coating of the dressing…

seasoned rice wine vinegar
fresh lime juice
1 clove garlic, minced
pureed chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (canned, in Mexican stores)
honey
kosher salt
canola oil
chopped fresh cilantro stems and leaves

For quantities and proportions, you can Google Nordstrom Chicken cilantro salad.

Mani church and convent (picture from the www)

Mani is a small town about 70 miles southeast of Merida, Yucatan. It is undistinguished except for the massive church that towers over the small buildings around it.

When we first went to Mani, about 22 years ago, the enormous church and monastery was alive with activity. The sounds of children’s voices and the lovely echoes of the church choir rehearsing broke the spell of the gloomy old building the minute you walked in. The doors were nearly always open and women in huipiles grouped in the corridors talking and laughing. There were always delicious smells emanating from the kitchen, run by Bernadetta, whose specialty was pavo relleno blanco.

And there were plants everywhere. Fruit trees, flowers, tall trees, sweet-smelling vines and a big kitchen garden.

Mani is famous for one thing. It is where Bishop deLanda, a Franciscan friar sent by Spain to civilize this part of the world, sought out and burned 27 Maya codices, almost the entire history of the Maya, enscribed carefully by hand, in lively, sophisticated glyphs. DeLanda did this on the front entryway to the massive building, for all to see, and among great ceremony. He also destroyed five thousand idols. This happened in the middle of the 16th century.

DeLanda had trouble locating the books at first. The local Maya, headed by Nachi Cocom and his extended family, had hidden the codices in a cave. A converted Catholic Maya contingent, lead by Tutul-xiu from Uxmal, sent emissaries to talk to the Cocom, urging them to convert and give up their heathen ways. The Catholic Maya group was not received well in Mani, and were in fact, slaughtered by the Cocom. A Tutul-xiu messenger, blinded by the Cocoms, was permitted to go back and give the Tutul-xius the bad news.

The following part of the history is vague to me, but the Spanish, equipped with firepower, quickly overcame the Cocom and the rest of the indigenous Maya around Mani, and installed Bishop deLanda to take over this unruly spot.

The Tutul-xiu group located the codices and handed them over to deLanda, who said they were inspired by the devil and had to be destroyed. He also destroyed recalcitrant Mayas by burning them alive, hanging them upside down until dead, and torturing and mutilating them. He drowned scores of others.

From the Madrid Codex

An entire history of an elegant, proud, sophisticated people was destroyed in one afternoon on the front entryway of the Mani cathedral. Only three codices remain, two of them now in Europe.

The Maya codices were burned here.

Years later, when deLanda returned to Spain, he had the nerve to write Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, his racist and unutterably cruel account of how he had found these devil-inspired heathens and forcefully tamed them.

Mayan glyphs (www)

Coming back to the present, the church in Mani is no longer the culturally rich center it was 20 years ago. It is as sterile as the day it was created by deLanda, and very, very quiet. And quite empty except for maintenance workers.

Back of church

Restored painting on church wall

Years ago, the priest appointed by the archdiocese of Yucatan to head the Mani church was a small, quiet Maya man, Padre Luis Quintal. Padre Luis was soon beloved by his parishioners and brought the crumbling old building to life with human activities and music. He had a smile for everyone and wore the torments of his flock on his intelligent face and in his sad eyes. He had a wicked sense of humor and a talent for making heavy burdens lighter.

Padre Luis is a compulsive gardener and surrounded the building with fruit-bearing trees and plantings that seemed to lessen the evil pall cast by the church’s violent history. He also taught the villagers how to garden and if you drive through Mani today, you will see fruit trees in nearly every compound.

The population of Mani is 100% Maya. The Padre made room for indigenous beliefs in his Catholicism. He took a huge piece of a Ceiba tree (the sacred tree of the Maya), oiled it beautifully, and turned it into a pulpit, which stood aside the standard one in front of the church.

While at Mani, Padre Luis saw the need for teaching campesinos how to get more out of their little milpas, where they grew beans and corn. He wrote a grant application which was funded by an organization in Germany, and built a school just outside of the town. He named it U Yits Ka’an. At this school, farmers learn to rotate crops, compost, and diversify. They continue to experiment with produce not commonly grown in this area. Alberto Castillo, Merida artist, RIP) painted a stunning mural for the school chapel.The beautiful school, with palapa and stick buildings went up quickly, all owing to enthusiastic volunteer labor. Padre Luis took no public credit for this school, and appointed someone else as director.

Padre Luis packed the Mani church on Sundays, and kept it lively all week with classes, choir practice, and conversations with visitors from everywhere who came to talk to him about the history of the place and his agricultural school project. Universities and environmental organizations got interested in the U Yits Ka’an. Mani was a happening place.

Padre Luis

Perhaps a bit too much was happening. The Yucatan archdiocese, never supportive of Padre Luis’ ways, removed him from the school he had founded, and sent him from Mani to a much smaller church in nearby Teabo. I visited there several times.

Until Padre Luis got there, the Teabo church had been crumbling, the huge doors hanging by single hinges, the place filthy. When I went, there were dozens of villagers cleaning up and fixing things. There were young fruit trees in the back property. Perhaps what touched me the most was the presence of a sick derelict who had apparently lived in the filthy old place for years. No one threw him out of the new, clean building. In fact, he was using his hands to down a plate of food.

I was glad to see the Teabo church being rejuvenated, but a few years later, Padre Luis became ill. He’s had several surgeries now and can’t work. He has moved to a piece of land near Mani where he’s built some Maya-style houses with ecological touches and hopes to make it into a retreat center someday. There is no budget for the place, but workers show up to clear land and plant trees. There are pools stocked with fish that eat insect larvae. There are “dry toilets.” There are no electric lights. There is a pyramid-shaped stack of logs where busy Yucatan melipona bees are getting ready for honey season. Found Maya objects sit on stone foundations. No one steals them. The place delivers a physically palpable wave of peace.

The Padre faces severe physical challenges in the coming months.

Last week, we visited Mani and were struck by the changes in the church. It is silent, no one is smiling, and there are fewer plants. The lovely Ceiba altar has been cut in two and put in a back courtyard in the rain. The church is sterile and austere. We couldn’t help but see parallels, of history repeating itself (minus the hangings, of course).

Remains of Ceiba altar

There is an excellent restaurant in Mani – so good in fact, that Meridians make the long drive there for lunch on Sundays. Unfortunately, it is called the Principe Tutul-xiu, although I understand the owners are not related. I was going to take a lot of pics of it and write an article about the restaurant, but we were so hungry I forgot to photograph anything past the soup.

Tutul-xiu’s specialty is poc-chuc, broiled outside over a wood grill. In memory of the old, warm church kitchen, I had the relleno blanco, which was fabulous.

New age donburi

I’ve suffered a trauma. Last night at about 8:00 p.m., two devilishly handsome men in Aloha shirts sweet-talked my husband into opening the door. They shoved their way in and kidnapped me. Under protest, I sunk into the sumptuous leather seats of their Lincoln and was driven to an unfamiliar part of town, where they forced me to eat Japanese food.

You can read my write-up on the restaurant experience on the kidnapper’s website, Expats Anonymous.

Here is their link.

What they wouldn’t allow me to print is that the tempura, consisting mainly of onions and unrecognizable vegetables, tasted exactly like the onion rings I have had at the King County Fair in Washington State.

Other than that small disagreement, we wrote the article together. And after the surprisingly good dining experience, they did bring me back home where I await their next home invasion.

Mature cacao tree

After an extensive drive along hilly, curving roads in the Puuc Hills of Yucatan, we arrived at Plantacion Tikul, the cacao farm owned by master chocolatier Mathieu Brees. Mathieu is a Belgian who, with his wife Stephanie Verbrugge, moved to Merida eight years ago to start their own chocolate-making business. They have three Ki Xocolatl retail stores in Merida and have started to ship their products to exclusive stores in the USA.

For years, they’ve been buying their raw chocolate from organic growers in Tabasco and Chiapas Mexico, but recently, they decided to start growing their own.

Mathieu’s good friend and business partner in Belgium, Eddy Van Belle, has invested in the plantation and his collection of chocolate-related artifacts will be displayed in the museum, coming soon. Mathieu’s other investor is Belcolade, a Belgian chocolate maker. These three chocolate-obsessed entities have lovingly put together a perfect situation for growing the world’s best cacao.

Plantacion Tikul is over 750 acres of rich soil and lush vegetation. There are about 40 workmen clearing land and planting cacao and shade plants. They’re also building a visitors’ center, Maya-style education buildings, and working on the sophisticated irrigation system. It’s a scene of busy activity.

The ancient unrestored Maya city of Sabacche is located on the plantation. These ruins are about the same age as the first cultivated chocolate, somewhere between 250 and 900 A.D. We can imagine that the Maya might have first figured out how to mix ground cacao beans, cacao oil, and flavorings right here at Plantacion Tikul/Sabacche. (Sugar was introduced to chocolate by the Spanish, centuries later.)

Cleared land with Maya pyramid in background

When you enter the property, something strikes you as odd. You gradually realize that although you are looking at a large, busy construction site, it is quiet and peaceful. There are no machines. Just the sounds of low voices and of birds and the occasional whack of a hammer.

That’s because INAH, the Mexican government agency that oversees ruins and museums, in an effort to preserve the ancient structures here, has forbidden the use of machines for this project. So the workers are back to the implements they’ve used for thousands of years – the machete, rough hammers, and other hand tools.

Welcome visitors – soon

Plantacion Tikul promises to be a stunning visitor attraction. It’s a gorgeous and unique park with lovely walkways. There’s going to be a delicious cafe, a children’s play area, the intrigue of an unrestored Maya ruin, friendly animals, and a high-quality educational experience. And best of all, there’s Ki Xocolatl chocolate!

A large, traditional building is the first thing you see. It’s the visitor reception center. When we were visited the other day, (10/20/2010), men were cementing the floor and finishing a palapa roof over the back.

Building a palapa roof

The other sensation that hits you when you enter the property is that it smells so good. It’s a combination of wood fires and fragrant plants, completely unsullied by machine oil or gas.

As you walk down the path through this beautiful place, you encounter a series of huts, all constructed in Maya style, and each presenting a different kind of information on the history, curative powers, and manufacturing of chocolate.

See the hut in the distance.

Education hut (one of five)

The huts are traditional Maya buildings. The walls are mud mixed with a special kind of grass and the roof is palm palapa.

Growing Cacao (Theobroma cacao – variety criollo)

The goal of Plantacion Tikul is to produce the highest grade, most flavorful cacao beans to be found anywhere. This is, of course, so Mathieu’s company, Ki Xocolatl, can produce the very finest chocolate available anywhere. He and his crew go to great lengths to accomplish this.

There are well-organized plantings everywhere, even on the Maya mounds. Cedro (cedar), yuca (cassava), mamey and banana for shade, and the cacao plants carefully protected underneath them. In the flat fields, there is a cedro every 36 meters, and every 12 meters a yuca.

This is a picture of yuca starts. All the workers need to do is push them into the ground, and they begin to generate leaves and grow. They are efficient, fast-growing shade plants.

Bananas are all around, in gently defined lines. Mathieu says that when the cedars grow to their full heights in a couple of years, the bananas, yuca and other temporary, fast-growing shade trees will be removed.

Young cacao plant under a sheltering cassava

Shade plantings

Six varieties of cacao are grown at Tikul.  The plants haven’t been grown commercially in Yucatan before this, because most of the area is inhospitable to them.  They need just the right combination of good soil, shade, altitude and temperature to thrive, and the Puuc hills provide a good environment.

During the clearing process, the workers have found over 200 orchid plants. They’ve all been moved to visible locations along the paths.

Transplanted orchids

The plantation also grows plants for flavoring chocolate – allspice, vanilla, cinnamon, and peppers.

Allspice

Young vanilla orchid

When his plants mature, Mathieu will be the only chocolatier in the world who controls his product from start to finish. The plants and beans, the flavorings, and the mixing and manufacturing – all will be done in Merida and on the plantation.

Mario Burgos, aka “Concho,” is the plantation foreman. He’s delighted with this project and even while chatting, he is examining leaves for infestation, or checking the moisture level of the soil. Here’s a picture of him next to his “favorite plant,” a one-year-old cacao.

Concho and his favorite tree

The crew is constantly experimenting to produce the sturdiest, most flavorful plant products. Cacao plants are routinely grafted* here. For example, they will take a plant that is hardy but not particularly high quality in flavor, and graft branches of the tastiest cacao to it. They try various combinations, all carefully labelled and recorded, and this will probably be a continuous process. Many of the original cacao plants are from Mathieu’s current providers in Tabasco, but need tweaking for the special environment of Yucatan.

Cacao ready for grafting

Workers' corn plants

Only some sections of the plantation have been cultivated and planted. Other parts are being cleared.

Walking through the plantation

The workers are working hard to clear all seven fields. Fields are delineated by large white irrigation PVC.

Clearing land

Young cacaos waiting for land to be cleared

This is the administration building and will contain offices.

This place is ecologically solid. The solar panels below provide the power for the security hut.

The irrigation system is a marvel. A 150 hp pump pulls water from the 110-meter-deep well and routes it through a PVC pipe system all over the plantation. The pipes graduate to smaller and smaller diameters all the way down to individual spray mechanisms, individually controlled, which are less than half-inch-thick rubber tubing with spigots.

Irrigation pumping system

The farm has a great deal of trouble with ant and insect infestation. They use organic materials to keep the beasts at bay. Ingredients include neem oil, citrus, onions and cinnamon. Cedar trees have an onion scent, which helps repel insects.

Organic insecticide

Sabacche

This little-documented Maya city, different from the one of a similar name located near Tecoh, has dozens of buildings and several plazas. The smaller, probably residential mounds, have been cleared and are visible, but the major structures are hidden in the jungle.

Here we see a hole in the ground with a paved lip. I say it’s a chultun; Mathieu says its an aktun. I say chultuns held water and he says they held provisions. We bet ten pesos but don’t have enough information to settle the debt.**

The inside of a chultun (aktun?) is lined with ceramic, in the shape of a huge jar.

A sacbe (Maya road) extends from Sabacche to Xlapac.

Beyond the hibiscus, the jungle shrouds large Maya temples

Sabacche mounds

INAH came in and mapped the site thoroughly before granting permission to build the plantation.  Mathieu says the workers have found dozens of Maya artifacts all over the property and gathered them together to show in the museum they are planning.

Cacao Beans

After visiting the Plantacion Tikul, we drove several kilometers to a nearby agricultural property, drove and then walked through several acres of citrus trees, and came to some giant cacao bushes. Concho said one of them was sixty years old!

As we walked, the smell of citrus was dizzying in the hot sun. We picked tangerines from the trees and ate them as we walked.

Cacao pods in mature tree

Cacao bean inside pod

Coffee beans

Cacao pods

This is the tattoo on Mathieu’s arm. The Maya glyphs say, “This man prepared chocolate for the gods.”

Mathieu's tattoo

Mathieu says that cacao was first cultivated in Yucatan and was used as highly valued trade tender. It is only appropriate that cacao should experience this revitalization here, at the site of its origins.

This visit was in October 2010. At this point, Mathieu and his team have been working on the Plantacion Tikul for about a year. We expect the place will look dramatically different in a few months. Plants will have matured, buildings will be finished, and the smells will be even more heavenly.

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*Grafting can only be done at certain times of the month. For instance, at the full moon, the sap is up in the trees and grafts do not take, according to Mathieu and Concho. .

**From Mathieu: Diferencia entre AKTUN y CHULTUN:

AKTUN: Aljibe natural o gruta para recolectar agua de lluvias.

CHULTUN: Aljibe hecho por el hombre al fin de almacenar alimentos o agua en las zonas con pocas precipitaciones.

Mathieu says that these are accurate definitions, sourced from a Maya dictionary.

In a future article, we will observe the master chocolatier at his craft. We’ll watch Mathieu’s entire process as he grinds and presses the cacao beans, separates the oils, does his mixes, adds flavorings and produces Ki Xocolatl chocolate.

Ki Xocolatl has a coffee and chocolate shop in downtown Merida on Calle 55, near the Sta. Lucia square. They also have several lovely retail outlets and are about to distribute their chocolate bars in the USA.