Traveller check into hotels for easy access to historical Mayan sites and the cenotes beyond, with ambles through colourful squares and late, balmy nights digesting feasts over tequila tipples. Between cultural excursions and natural wonders, however, there's much to be said for the artisans in these parts. From crafted perfumes to handmade chocolates, these are the gifts and trinkets to make space for in your luggage.
Santa Teresa on Costa Rica's Pacific coast is a favorite among surfers and traveling professionals because of its long beaches and relaxed atmosphere. The town offers several coworking spaces and cafés with reliable internet, which makes remote work easier. The area is accessible via Tambor Airport with onward road and ferry connections to larger cities. Accommodation prices range from budget hostels to luxury villas. The local community is international, and the abundance of healthy restaurants and yoga studios contributes to a comfortable and productive stay.
When Araceli Maldonado, a Mexican baker in London, read on Instagram that British chef Richard Hart had said that Mexico didn't have a bread culture, she felt a pang of sadness. On her last trip back home, she decided to visit the bakery that Hart had opened in the heart of the Roma neighborhood in Mexico City.
You are not alone: social media is full of claims that soaking banana skins in water makes a fertiliser that will give you bigger leaves and better blooms. The hack Put banana peels in a jar of water, leave them to sit, then pour the liquid on your plants. Bananas do contain potassium and small amounts of other nutrients. The snag is you have no idea how strong it is or what's missing.
In the coastal city of Trujillo, he'd observed how the US-owned United Fruit Company dominated the city's railways and docks and wielded significant political influence. This inspired his novel "Cabbages and Kings" (1904), in which he wrote about the fictional republic of Anchuria — a 'small, maritime banana republic' whose government bent to the interests of a powerful foreign corporation.
Even in good years, mangoes are considered one of the most difficult fruit crops to cultivate. They depend on a delicate balance of climate, tree physiology, and farming techniques. Getting that balance right is crucial for India, the world's biggest producer of mangoes, where 23 million tonnes of the fruit is harvested every year - almost a fifth of India's total fruit output.
So it may come as another surprise that in a year, a single coffee tree only produces enough fruit to make about a pound of roasted beans. Coffee beans are actually seeds that form in fruits that are often about the size and color of cherries. After taking several years to mature, coffee trees produce around 2,000 cherries a year. With two seeds per cherry, that's about 4,000 raw coffee beans per harvest season. Once roasted, that yields around 1 pound of ready-to-grind beans.