Here’s a question: what does pre-colonial America have in common with hills on one of the islands in the Philippines. To give you a hint: it’s brown and made of cacao seeds.

And the answer is: chocolate!! And why is that? Chocolate surely originates from the American continent. But there are no chocolate trees in the Philippines. Well, in fact, there are no chocolate trees anywhere in the world because such tree doesn’t exist. Instead of having chocolate trees the Philippines have something much bigger: Chocolate Hills. Before you start to wonder: no, the hills are not made of chocolate. If they were, then surely the country would be world’s major hub for chocolate industry. There are also no cocoa trees there.

There are hundreds of these hills on the island of Bohol. All of them are cone-shaped and almost symmetrical. Moreover, during the dry season the grass that covers them turns brown. Chocolate brown to be precise. And there you go – mystery solved! This way you can enjoy Chocolate Hills in the Philippines. Just make sure you head to the town of Carmen on the island.

Now just to confirm that we are in the right place:

So does the sign say so we can shoot some photos.

Have a look at the result of the photo-shoot. As you can see some of the hills are brown-ish while others are pretty green.

Mother nature, you see,  works in different and often unexpected ways. Chocolate Hills are just one example of Earth’s many natural wonders. As you know Philippines is a very diverse country with the landscape ranging from pristine beaches through dense jungle (also urban jungle known to most as Manila), steep hills, freshwater lakes up to high mountains and active volcanoes. We will visit quite a few of them in the following posts.