Green Acres Chocolate Farm — Attraction in Bocas del Toro

Gary is a character with the kind of passion you witness once in a lifetime. He toured us through his favourite (rare, endangered) trees, the volunteer centre, the cacao roastery & small batch processing facility on-site. His property will have you immersed in the world of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory as you’ll hike up through the trails and he takes his time to point out several uniquely nutritious plants native to Panama, explaining their health benefits & answering all of our questions in his particular humorous way.

We saw more poisonous dart frogs than we could count, along with sloths, hummingbirds & nests filled with tiny speckled eggs that had us all, including Gary in all of his childlike wonder of the natural world, giggling and stopping to really soak in the magic of. You cannot help but feel like a special person when you visit because he subtly curates the tour to visitors’ individual personalities and interests, remembering you by name as a small example of this. The award winning cacao product tastings at the end of the tour are literally just the cherry on top.

An absolute must visit to support this non-profit’s work if you’re anywhere in Bocas’...

This was the experience of a lifetime! Robert, the owner, host, tour guide, and teacher extraordinaire was miles beyond fantastic! He not only taught us about cacao farming, but demonstrated a profound knowledge of the local Flora and fauna, incorporating their relationships within the ecosystem into the tour. The setting was picture perfect; rolling hills, banana plants, cacao trees, and a host of other plantlife. We saw a family of howler monkeys as soon as we arrived! We sighted beautiful birds, frogs, and other diverse wildlife. When the tour was over Robert led us back to their off grid house where his wife, Julie, waited for us with triple filtered rainwater and homemade banana bread with cacao nibs from their own land! Their products were perfectly priced, so we indulged in many options before hopping back onto the boat to Bocos Del Toro.

Note on transport: If you are coming from Bocas del Toro, leave at least an hour for finding a water taxi and making the trip. Most drivers will know where the farm is, or the village next to it, but it is a process finding a driver willing to do it, along with negotiating a price and completing paperwork. But again,...

So, from Bocas Town, you take a water taxi for about 25 minutes and you arrive at this small, thatched-roof dock in the middle of nowhere. You get off your boat, and you're greeted by the owner, Gary, who is a life-long environmental activist. Gary owns 30 acres of jungle on the mainland of Bocas del Toro province and uses it for a bunch of stuff, which includes growing chocolate commercially but also a lot of other things. This tour is Gary walking you around his property for about 3 hours (don't believe the listed time of 2 hours) showing you the various plants and animals that live there and telling you about his various projects. One of those projects is making chocolate, and you do get to see and taste cacao fruits and see how chocolate is made, but his other projects include raising endangered Almendro trees for reforestation projects and working with local native tribes to encourage the growing of native plants for food. We saw so much wildlife on the tour: at least four sloths, wild poison dart frogs, a bullet ant, and several birds. One group of people on our tour brought big binoculars with them and saw a bunch of...