Day Two, First Day Meeting Our Professors

We started the day off with getting our boots and going on a hike through the forest around the cacao farm. On the hike we came across a creek and stopped at a rock in the center and took a group photo. Then we met with Pablo, the owner of the farm, and he guided us on a "chocolate tour". First he explained the history of cacao, afterwards he told us about the process of making chocolate, he then let us try a roasted cacao bean (first we had to crush the shell of make cacao nibs). Then we tasted some chocolate drinks and we got to try a traditional chocolate Christmas drink from Costa Rica. We also got to try some pralines, one was filled with blackberry jam and the the other had nuts in it. Then Pablo put us to the test to see how rich of a dark chocolate we could stand, he gave us a 72%, 82%, and a 92% dark chocolate, not everyone made it to 92%.

After a filling lunch, we met our professor, Dr. Adrian Pinto and grad student Allen, that was working for Dr. Pinto. We played a get to know you game, where we said our name and something memorable about us. After the game, Dr. Pinto and Allen broke us into our research groups... team G.A.J.E, team K.E.W.L- Kids, and team las Águilas (The Eagles). When broken into groups, we were assigned our first research project. Dr. Pinto asked us to find where in the lab had the most abundance of bacteria. Each group created a hypothesis and prediction, then we all went out to collect samples, so we could culture the bacteria in petri dishes. Once all samples were collected, we placed them in an incubator, and watched a couple movie clips about the leaf cutter ants and the bullet ants. After the movie was over, we drove back to camp to finish off the day with a nice dinner. Now that dinner is over, we are excited to get back to the cabins and get a good nights sleep.