Peru produces the finest chocolate in the world.
Its unlimited supply of Cocoa beans - which spoil easily in transit - mean that the Belgians, who claim the chocolate crown, can only maintain their confectionary supremacy by subterfuge.
Through a concerted web of international trade tariffs, subsidies and periodic military incursions into Peruvian Cocoa plantations, under the auspices of the US war on drugs, they have prevented vastly the superior Peruvian product from making its way to European markets.
The Inca people discovered the properties of the Cocoa bean early in their development and used the first forms of chocolate for a variety of purposes, including construction.
The original Sun Gate at Machi Pichu was constructed from chocolate which was designed to melt as the rays of the summer solstice struck it on what we now know as the 21st June each year. The Inca worshipped numerous deities and Buonavila, the God of agriculture, was amongst the most powerful.
The month of June was denoted by a depiction of the Cocoa bean which, in the Quechean language, is loosely pronounced as ‘Qwadbari’ or ‘Cadbury’ as early 20th century explorers came to pronounce it.
The mountain top settlement of Machu Pichu is commonly misunderstood, even by many scholars, to be an agrarian retreat guarding the lower reaches of the sacred Valley.
In fact it was the epicentre of the Inca chocolate industry. Archaeological discoveries in the 1960’s proved conclusively that mass production of chocolate took place at the site as late as the 14th century, employing upwards of 500 people.
Human sacrifice was routinely associated with worship of the Buonavila. Adolescents, specially raised for the purpose, were sacrificed during a death ritual in which they were either drowned in molten chocolate or ate themselves to death.
The ceremony could last as long as thirty hours, especially if the sacrifice was of a female.
In 1809, the Belgian explorer Gustav Lindt, rediscovered the ruins of Machu Pichu, quite by accident, whilst looking of the fabled Mayan pyramids of Toblerone. During his excavations, he discovered the only recorded examples of Inca writing - the recipe for chocolate.
Come to Peru and taste the truth.
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