Authentic experiences?!
Wow. It´s been a busy few days. First I went out for dinner with the European students and ate ¨comida típica¨ which alas, in my case at least, translated into um, soup. Yes. Soup with intestines, ears, skin, some sort of sausage thing (that was sweet) and other bits of animals that I would never usually eat. And have I mentioned that I was a pretty decent vegetarian until about a week ago?! Yikes. Anyway. My story is that the broth was really tasty (it was) and I enjoyed the sausage thing so long as I didn´t think much about it, and well, I confess that I left the majority of the ´bits´ behind. A bit weak, perhaps, but it was the best I could do!
We then went out to la Ciudad Antigua for a drink made of fermented fruit augmented by something that bore a close resemblance to moonshine. We were also serenaded by a gentleman singing Andean karaoke... But a good atmosphere nonetheless. I actually preferred the drink without the moonshine, but hey. Adventures in eating!
Yesterday I climbed a mountain. Mount Pinchincha, to be exact. Holy barracude Batman. I have never climbed so high in my life. I was going to wimp out what I thought was about 2/3 of the way up, but Christoph convinced me that as his housemate I couldn´t let him down. So I climbed up to the summit. Which, for the record is somewhere around 4700 or 4800 metres. Yes, almost five kilometres up. Yikes! I was really hurting by the top -- no oxygen and seriously not prepared for such a long hike, at least in the sense that I didn´t bring enough food or water. But I at least had warm and windproof layers with me and Fadri had an extra pair of gloves for the cold part on the way down. The weather was about as perfect as you can get -- lovely and clear in the morning and only misty/cloudy up high in the afternoon. I took tonnes of photos, but a technological accident in the evening when I got back meant that I lost them all. So sad. But Michael and Christoph shared with me, and Fadri and Michelle will share as well, so all is not lost (just the pictures of me at the top :(). We were meant to go out for drinks and dancing afterwards, but the altitude and lack of food and water did me in and I went to bed with a migraine. But I did get to have a truly spectacular cup of hot chocolate before I crashed and also the first veggie meal in what feels like forever (already). My body cheered :)
Today I went Sogalqui (I think...), a town about 40 minutes from Quito that holds a big open air market each Sunday. It was huge! I tried some Ecuadorian fruits, and drank a big glass of fresh juice (which I´m hoping wasn´t made with local tap water... then again, the ¨bits soup¨ didn´t make me sick, so maybe my stomach is quite strong??). And then went for the second adventurous meal in the last 60 hours or so -- I tried the South American specialty of cuy. Also known as guinea pig. Yes, you read that correctly. I took some pictures, which I do *not* plan to accidentally delete this time, and I´ll post some food pics sometime soon.
Ciao!
We then went out to la Ciudad Antigua for a drink made of fermented fruit augmented by something that bore a close resemblance to moonshine. We were also serenaded by a gentleman singing Andean karaoke... But a good atmosphere nonetheless. I actually preferred the drink without the moonshine, but hey. Adventures in eating!
Yesterday I climbed a mountain. Mount Pinchincha, to be exact. Holy barracude Batman. I have never climbed so high in my life. I was going to wimp out what I thought was about 2/3 of the way up, but Christoph convinced me that as his housemate I couldn´t let him down. So I climbed up to the summit. Which, for the record is somewhere around 4700 or 4800 metres. Yes, almost five kilometres up. Yikes! I was really hurting by the top -- no oxygen and seriously not prepared for such a long hike, at least in the sense that I didn´t bring enough food or water. But I at least had warm and windproof layers with me and Fadri had an extra pair of gloves for the cold part on the way down. The weather was about as perfect as you can get -- lovely and clear in the morning and only misty/cloudy up high in the afternoon. I took tonnes of photos, but a technological accident in the evening when I got back meant that I lost them all. So sad. But Michael and Christoph shared with me, and Fadri and Michelle will share as well, so all is not lost (just the pictures of me at the top :(). We were meant to go out for drinks and dancing afterwards, but the altitude and lack of food and water did me in and I went to bed with a migraine. But I did get to have a truly spectacular cup of hot chocolate before I crashed and also the first veggie meal in what feels like forever (already). My body cheered :)
Today I went Sogalqui (I think...), a town about 40 minutes from Quito that holds a big open air market each Sunday. It was huge! I tried some Ecuadorian fruits, and drank a big glass of fresh juice (which I´m hoping wasn´t made with local tap water... then again, the ¨bits soup¨ didn´t make me sick, so maybe my stomach is quite strong??). And then went for the second adventurous meal in the last 60 hours or so -- I tried the South American specialty of cuy. Also known as guinea pig. Yes, you read that correctly. I took some pictures, which I do *not* plan to accidentally delete this time, and I´ll post some food pics sometime soon.
Ciao!
Comments
I am so glad others have photos though! The food sounds a bit scary....
Love you tonnes!!
Catherine