Just a few quick pictures. We're in Ecuador for a few days trying to learn about Ecuadorian cacao and  the farming and post-harvest practices here. We spent about 8 hours driving yesterday from Guayaquil to a small buying station in Los Rios province. Our guide drove maniacally at between 90-100mph en route while swerving and weaving through cars and "lanes"! Unfortunately, it was so rainy that we didn't have much of a chance to tour farms here. We did have an opportunity to see some processing and buying stations and to see some of the old trees on one of the farms of the area. The politics of cacao in Ecuador are complex and the challenges involved in getting cacao processed correctly are a bit daunting. I will hopefully have an opportunity to speak to some of these challenges in a future post. Today we head to a major exporter to do a cocoa liquor sample tasting. Tomorrow, back to Lima and then Piura! Stay tuned! [gallery link="file" columns="2"]