an ode to street food

to preface, this is such a fat kid´s post. i wrote it during an 18 hour bus ride to mendoza, argentina, when all i had was a package of oreos to satiate me for the whole journey. my thoughts began to roam to food...

in colombia, balancing a greasy corn tortilla arepa dripping with melty cheese in one hand with a fresh blended pina-banana-mango-maracuya juice in the other, finishing it all up with an ensalada de frutas filled with an assortment exotic vegetation that have no english translations.

in peru, cooling down with market-fresh ceviche, plucking fat kernels of corn straight off the cob on the beach in mollendo, dousing every plate of food with a spicy dose of aji.

in costa rica, macheting open fresh coconuts on the beach so i could drink the raw juice in front of the blue surf.

in guatemala, eating black beans with everything, smashed, spicy, stewed, whole, upside down inside out, every way mouth-watering, alongside what has become my most favoritest snack in the whole wide world, fried plantain chips.

in bolivia, first keeping it safe and simple with fresh squeezed orange juice on the street, then branching out to try cuy and alpaca meat, just to say i did.

in nicaragua, the gallo pinto, spotted rooster, as a blend of beans and rice a vegetarians delight, until i discovered that the rich flavor comes from pig´s tail.

in honduras, eating my fill of super baleadas, a massive tortilla layered with refried beans, crumbly queso, veg and eggs, a two dollar feast that left me full all day.

and in argentina, finally sucumbing to my animal instincts and savoring the most sublime steak i´ve ever tasted as it melts in my mouth, nibbling on dulce de leche-laden afajores for breakfast, having an empanada (or five) to tide me over until 10pm dinner time.

if you couldn´t tell, one of my favorite way to get to know a country is through food. you can taste a culture, literally. whether i´m browsing through the markets in inquitos weaving through the stalls and smells and spices to try a lightly grilled jungle tree grub, buying yuca chips through the window on a chicken bus in guatemala, eating at a hole-in-the-wale where the plates don´t match in cuenca, savoring a juicy papaya slice in the plaza in popayan, it´s all a tango for my taste buds. cheap thrills, culinary adventures, an upset stomach in the making because i´m never quite sure what i´m eating--in travel, who could ask for more?

ruta cuarenta

so i´ve finally made it to the last country on this incredible journey...argentina. but first, i went through a couple more places in bolivia, trying to get all i could out of it before i entered the land of the expensive. tupiza, the wild wild west with an indigenous twist, for horseback-riding and tarija, ¨the most mediterranean of all of the country¨so said the lonely planet, but in all reality it was just a couple of ho-hum plazas and dingy hotels, for a taste of bolivian wine (and let´s just say that got me ruuuuuul excited for the vino in argentina!). i took a night bus down to the border town of villazon (side note: bolivian bus lines always plan their routes so you get in at, you know, between the very reasonable hours of 2-4am. because that´s the exact time i want to get into a new city, with everything i own on my back, running on no sleep, food or energy) and true to form, i arrived at little past three. unsurprisingly, immigration offices weren´t open, so i crashed out for a couple hours on the bus with the drivers and luggage handlers. they were even nice enough to lend me a couple blankets to snuggle up in.

then, i crossed the border, and everything changed. what, roads are paved? there are movies on the bus, and not one, but two!? the seats actually recline? coffee service? why yes, i would LOVE a glass of wine, thank you very much. toto, we are definitely not in kansas--or south america, for that matter--anymore.

it doesn´t have much of an indigenous culture, the spanish accent is nearly impossible to understand, people seem to survive solely on massive amounts of meat, and the prices are absolutely killing my budget, but gosh dang, argentina, i think i love you. i really do. and not just because they serve wine on the buses.

salta, the first town i settled into, reminds me more of spain or italy than peru or ecuador. sprawling plazas lined with palm trees, large avenues, large groups sharing mate, pizzerias on every corner, old men debating politics and lingering over cafe con leches and a sense of sophistication that for the first time makes me feel a bit self-conscious in my flip flops and dirty jean shorts. it´s still latin, but with class.


i promised my mother i wouldn´t hitchhike, and thus was hit with a bit of a dilemma. i had heard about this amazing drive from salta to the small towns of cachi and cafayate, connected by the famous route 40, ruta cuarenta, the longest road in argentina that stretches from bolivia to patagonia, the road taken by che guevara on his infamous trip through the south america. it had to be done. only problem is that there is no public transportation between the two cities. luckily, a swiss guy, martin, from my hostel had his heart set on renting a car, and even though i couldn´t pay (because, if you haven´t noticed, i am cheap cheap cheap), said i could tag along for the ride. road trip!

clear the road! alex is attempting to drive a stick shift!

garganta del diablo (devil´s throat)

the scenery was incredible, and the company wasn´t too bad either. a quirky character, this martin. english wasn´t his first language so we had a couple lost-in-translation issues. especially once i started on the wine (as he was the driver, that meant that i got to taste the vino at all the wineries we stopped at, whee!). communication problems aside, though, we made great road trip buddies.

and my personal favorite, wine-flavored ice cream. though i am a red wine girl through and through, the man in the shop recommended the fruity local torronte. wine and ice cream, together as one, something quite nearly close to perfection.


i learned both how to drive and stick shift AND change a tire, along with being informed of the fun fact that people in switzerland eat horses. you really do learn something new every day.

surrealism: defined

ok, i don´t know if, by definition, you can truly define surrealism, but if the word had a geographic area, it would be represented by southwest bolivia. in particular, the salar de uyuni and surrounding landscape. nothing was normal, nothing made sense, yet everything was perfect in its own incongruous way. it is, in una palabra, surreal.

i arrived in uyuni completely overwhelmed, as the town was infested with tour agencies (and, strangely, italian-pizza restaurants) all hawking the same-sounding 3 day, 2 night tour of the salt flats. true to form, i went with the guys who gave me a veggie discount and threw in a bottle of wine for the last meal.

take a 4WD toyota jeep circa 1981, a motley group of 6 round-the-world travelers, a gold-toothed driver and one feisty cook, shake-don´t stir, and serve on the rocks. throw in around 700 miles of incredible scenery for good measure. bottoms up.

the group

we started out at the train cemetary, which is basically what is sounds like--a graveyard of decomissioned trains rusting in the middle of the uyuni badlands. it had absolutely nothing to do with nature or scenery or salt, for that matter, but it was fun to scramble over old cabooses (caboosi? cabeese? what´s the plural for caboose?) and old train parts for photography´s sake.

then, after some obligatory stops at the artensenal town of colchani, where you could see the world´s biggest llama (made of salt!), buy things like salt dice (or if you´re boring, a bag of bolivian salt--have fun taking THAT through customs!), and see mini-mountains of--you guessed it--salt. and finally, we were off to the main event, the salt flats! the biggest in the world!

salty

bumping across the plains, i had to keep reminding myself that i was on planet earth. the moon, or maybe pluto, but something alien. a trend that would continue throughout the trip. as far as the eye could see, white. looks like snow, but it´s not. it was the dry season, the salt just beginning to crack in large hexagonal shapes, the blinding white a stark contrast to the brillant blue cloudless sky. on and on and on for miles on end. during the rainy seasons, it´s covered in water and creates a perfect, hallugenogenic reflection of the sky above. the world´s biggest mirror. it´s hard to describe--there are only so many ways you can describe white--but take my word for it--surreal.

oh, and you can also take all these crazy photos due to the white background--there´s no sense of perspective on the salt flats because there aren´t any vantage points. so we putzed around for a while, taking photos like this:

i had to throw in some old school cheer moves

and this:

(note: will add photo when i find an internet connection that is NOT dial-up, as is the one i am using now. i could seriously knit an entire family a set of sweaters, or at least some socks, waiting for a page to load, and lord knows i do not have the nimblest of fingers.)

to complete the sodium theme of the day, we stayed the night in a suprisingly comfortable salt hotel. seriously, everything was made of blocks of salt. cool, no? except that now instead of all my things covered in sand, i find myself shaking grains of salt out of my shoes. also, for dinner that night, we had a bolivian specialty, pique lo macho. french fries, onions, tomato, meat, hot dogs, cheese and eggs (and, i´m guessing, a hefty pinch of salt). i kid you not, they love it here.

the next day was spent driving driving driving, off-roading through martian lands, hopping out of the car every 30 minutes or so for photo-ops. it was both burning hot from the sun and freezing cold from the wind--how approriate for this land of contrasts. an aquamarine lagoon, fringed with salt at the base of a volcano at 4200m. a flamingoo breeding ground. mountains painted a muted rainbow of colors, mossy green and clay and dusty violent and ruddy pink and amber red. verdant green mushroom-like plants that looked like they belonged in super mario bros sprounting in the desert. massive rocks twisted and turned and bent into incredible natural formations. a stone tree carved by howling sandy winds. an ancient lake turned vivid red from mineral deposits. and this was all just the second day.

we spent the night at 4300m. it was around -4 degrees celcius, and as we were freezing in our bunker-like accomdations we were all dreaming of our cozy salt hotel the night before. who knew salt blocks would conjure up such warm memories? i didn´t sleep much, somewhat due to the altitude but moreso because of an all-night poker session with some germans from another tour group. that made for a rough awakening at 4:30am, but we had a hour drive ahead of us, racing against time and the moon to catch the sunrise. we stopped at the sol de mañana geyser basin, bubbling sulfur pools and spectular geysters, steaming with volcanic strength. the sun made it´s entrance, striping the indigo sky with brillant strips of red, my view on slightly obscured by gas rising from the earth. this moment felt the most other-wordly. i felt closer to the sun, closer to space, closer to something bigger than myself, than i ever had before--and not just because i was up at 5000m. not that it did anything to warm us up--we all hundled together for body heat, taking refuge behind the jeep for protection against the searing winds.

an early morning dip in thermal hot springs warmed us up, a drive through the panorama that inspired artist salvadore dali´s paintings of multi-colored mountains and rocks left me inspired, and a looooong trip through the badlands brought us back to uyuni--dusty, wind-chapped and brimming with pictures. 3 days, 700 miles, no worse for wear.

truly, some of the oddest, eeriest, exotic, vividly beautiful, most surreal landscape i have ever seen. i promise to post some photos, but it won´t do it justice.

and a man just walked into the internet cafe with a carboard box full of hot salteñas. i love it when snacks come to you, especially when you´ve been attempting to blog for an hour. gracias, señor, don´t mind if i do!