Funny you said that. We took a tour of a cocoa bean plantation while at St Lucia. Part of it was a 3 or 4 mile walk to a waterfall. We had a couple of locals guiding us (about 15-20 tourists) and they were carrying these big huge machetes.
We laugh about it now...we could have all been cut to pieces and left for dead and nobody would have known where to find us...we were that deep in the forest. Good thing the guides were honest.
I used to live in the Caribbean; I know whereof I speak.