experience Toledo's rich blend of nature, adventure and culture ...

The Cacao Trail takes you into Toledo's heartland, with its lush green interior blanketing the foothills of the Maya Mountains. Leaving from Punta Gorda, you'll journey north-west up the Southern Highway, before turning off onto the unpaved roads which lead to the villages nestled throughout Toledo's chocolate country!

You'll visit the organic cacao orchards, and meet the farms who are all members of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, before moving on to one of Toledo's beautiful inland attractions. The CacaoTrail ends at Lubaantun for a special performance of the Deer Dance!

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The 2007 Cacao Trail was the first stage of a pilot scheme, conducted with the assistance of Irish Aid, to bring tourism benefits to both the cacao farmers and the villagers of Toledo. The idea was first discussed in late 2006 on one of Kieran's visits to Punta Gorda - his vision being to introduce FairTrade tourism to the area and, longer-term, to offer 'FairTrade' regional tours, taking in the cacao-growing Toledo region, the coffee and honey producers in Guatemala, and perhaps at some future stage even the vanilla growers in the Yucatan District.

The pilot scheme involved considerable planning and liaison with the Toledo Cacao Growers Assocation, the individual cacao farmers, and registered tour operators. For the first year, farms were chosen which were easily accessible, and the group then worked on setting appropriate standards, creating wide and clear trails around the plantations, and developing the farm tours themselves. The result was a highly successful tour of the cacao farms where visitors had the chance to learn how the pods grow, are harvested and processed, and to sample both the kukuh drink and the homemade organic chocolate. Perhaps more importantly, it provided a chance for them to interact with the farmers and their families, learning about their daily lives and their cultural traditions. Many guests loved helping to make tortillas, which they then enjoyed with their traditional 'caldo' lunch.

The CacaoTrail team is continuing to develop these tours for 2008, seeking to expand the number of farms suitable for the tours by working with the farmers, and the cacao trail tours will also include the opportunity to plant a cacao tree for future generations! The next stage of the development is to extend the tours to offer overnight accommodation in the villages, and they are working with both the Toledo Ecotourism Association and the Maya Homstay Network  to achieve this.

The tours follow sustainable tourism principles, seeking to minimise negative social and cultural impacts of tourism, to maximise economic benefits to the local community, and to respect the environment. Each tour uses only locally-trained tour guides and has only a small number of tourists so as not to overwhelm the communities.