A little about the food

We haven't done a whole lot other than work in the past few weeks, so I'll talk about some of the food in Ecuador.  First, not including meals we have made ourselves, I can probably count the number of meals we've had that didn't include rice on one hand.   Everything comes with rice, even the spaghetti.   A common breakfast, especially for working class people, is rice with stewed chicken or beef, a little bit of salad, coffee and fruit juice.  It's usually only about $1.50 to $2.00.  For a breakfast on the run or quick snack, cooked hominy with Chicharron is availble everywhere on the streets.  Chicharron is fried pork scraps, kind of like cracklins but still chewy.  I (Johnny) prefer these breakfasts more than just eggs and bread because they are more flavorful and filling.  For lunch, some type of broth based soup is served first, then a choice of stewed chicken, beef, or sometimes goat and rice.  Lunch is very similar to breakfast, but with the addition of soup and no coffee.  Dinners aren't as important as lunch and breakfast.  I think they just eat whatever's around, like bread or crackers or something.  Some of the restaurants that serve the described breakfast and lunch, will also serve more or less the same thing for dinner too.  I haven't seen anything too crazy as far as weird foods.  The most different thing I have tried would either be guatita, which is cow stomach stewed in a peanut based sauce, or grilled intestines.  Random chicken part soup is pretty popular too.  I've had chicken head, neck, heart, liver, kindney, and feet in the soups.  I still need to try the grilled guinea pig, but it's kind of expensive.  There´s an area near our house where people set up street food stands and sell all of this, minus the guinea pig.  We tried  it for the first time last weekend and we will be going back.  It was all very good.  You can see exactly where we ate by watching the show No Reservations : Ecuador.  Here's the link.  It's about 4 minutes 30 seconds into it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIBerTO0Sw

There is a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and most are pretty cheap.  Everything that can be found in the states can be found here, with the exception of good apples.  The have apples, but they are expensive and not that great.  There's also many fruits I have never tried or seen before.  My favorite it the chirimoya, which is somewhat related to a pawpaw but sweeter.  Unfortunately they are expensive in Quito.  Other fruits I have never seen before are pepino dulces, taxos, ganabana, granadillas, uvillas, tomate de arbol, and probably some others I don't know the name of, or am forgetting.  Nothing too unusual in the vegetable department.  Fava beans are really common and inexpensive.  Chochos, or a lupin beans are indigenous to the Andes and are also very common.  Another different vegetable is the yuca.  It's a root that is kind of like a potato.  It's the root that tapioca comes from.

A common snack food  is empanadas.  There are empanadas verde, which are made of mashed green plantains and stuffed with cheese or meat, and there are empandas viento (wind).  These are puffy, fried dough with cheese in it and sprinkled with sugar.  Bolons are also common, which are the same ingredients in empanadas verde, but rolled into a ball instead of into a pocket.  Amber and I tried to make empanads, but they failed and ended up being bolons.  On our walk home, we pass people on the street who sell grilled meats on sticks or grilled yellow (sweet) plantains.

Amber with our haul

While there are large supermarkets in Quito, we try to buy most of our food from a large outdoor market in the north side of the city.  The prices here are cheaper and sometimes can be negotiated.  It's also a better atmosphere, and there are no checkout lines.  Last time we got 5 pounds of potatoes, 2-3 pounds of tomatoes, 19 bananas, 24 carrots, 6 avocados, 10 kiwis, 2 heads of garlic, 3 lbs of rice, a bag of fava beans, a bag of chochos, and 19 onions for $10.50.

Foods we miss:   Pie, good peanut butter, English muffins, thick pizza, Nestle hot chocolate mix, Morning Star ribs my mom's cooking and dad's pot roast.

Interesting Fact: The stray dogs in the cites are very good at negotiating traffic.  We see many strays every day we walk to work, but have never seen one that has been hit by a car.  When a dog needs to cross the street, he looks both ways and weaves between the crazy drivers.  One dog that Amber is particularly fond of, will cross a very busy traffic circle just to use the bathroom.  Sadly, the cats are not as smart or lucky.

A long llama weekend...

      This past weekend Johnny and I had four days off of work. We decided to do a few different trips instead of one long adventure.
      To start the weekend off on Saturday we traveled by bus to the center of the world (aka El Mitad del Mundo). The bus took us about 14km outside of Quito to a place that literally marks Latitude 0'0'0. We walked into the park and were immediately greeted by two llamas just wandering around and eating what they liked. I love the llamas. After taking pictures of the llamas we wandered up to the large monument that marked the Equator line. A ton of people were taking stupid pictures on the line... I still don't understand why laying down on the equator is seen as "the thing to do". I prefer to stand, thank you. Instead of waiting in line for people to lay down and get back up, John and I walked around the back to the EXACT same line and took our pictures in peace. We had the whole equator to ourselves... : ) There is a little "city" at the monument. It is mostly filled with people selling overpriced Andean things (ponchos, hammocks, bags, etc...) and with restaurants that charge $22 for a cuy (guinea pig). We did stop at a museum with some neat aerial shots of different cities and we also stopped at the insectario which housed some gigantic bugs and pretty butterflies. After the equator we hopped back on a bus to Quito. We got off at a huge outdoor market that we had never been to before.  I think that there were about 500 or so different vendors (maybe more) selling anything and everything. We stocked up on fruit, beans,cheese and yuca. We also had lunch in the market. We stopped at a lady who was serving soup (John's soup had a chicken head/neck AND foot in it...which he ate both), fried fish, rice, salad, beans and a drink... all for $1.50. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was unique. Then came the trek home. Two buses and a walk. It is really nice being able to get around without a car.
 (JOHN TALKS ABOUT MOUNTAIN)
Sunday, I went with a group up Pasochoa, mountain just to the south of Quito. http://www.summitpost.org/pasochoa/151508   It's not a very high mountain compared to others nearby (13,779 ft), but it is very beautiful.  The mountain is an extinct volcano with a giant crater that is now filled with a protected forest.  We were there to practice some easy rock climbing and rappelling.  We did a steep scramble up to the lower peak and then hiked/scrambled up the higher peak.  From there, we rappelled down a short wall and climbed with ropes around the other side.  The best part of the day was when I was halfway up the rock wall and the neighboring volcano Cotopaxi completely emerged from the clouds briefly.  This was the first time I had seen all of Cotopaxi, and it was from a great location.  On our hike down, we got rained and hailed on, but the lighting stayed away.  We also saw male and female eagles flying together.  
    For Monday and Tuesday we decided to check out a local hot spring source called Papallacta. Papallacta is located about 2.5 hours outside of Quito by bus. We woke on Monday, took a bus to Cumbaya (a rich town outside of Quito) and then hopped a bus in the general direction of Papallacta. We arrived around noon and set off to find a place to spend the night. After checking out a few hotels and hostals we decided on a place called Pampallacta Thermals. The room was super cute and included a fireplace and our own hot spring pool in the bathroom. There were also 3 other hot spring pools that we could use outside of our room. Before testing out the pools we walked down the hill to Don Wilson's to get some trucha (trout). The food was really good and exactly what we needed after our trip.  After lunch we tested out the pools. Holy cow! They were so hot. We estimated the temperature around 110 degrees F. My first reaction was that the water was literally burning me... however, after a minute or so we got used to it. It was nice to just relax in the hot water and not have to do anything else. We also spent some time in a pool that had a slide : ) In both pools we pretty much had the water to ourselves. When it got dark we ventured out for dinner only to find that everything was already closed. We ended up eating salchipapas (french fries with a fried hot dog) and hot chocolate. By this time the weather had cooled off considerably and being at 3,300 meters it was down right cold. We had the fire lit in the room and filled our private pool with hot spring water. That did the trick to warm me up...also the 4 blankets on the bed helped. In the morning we ate a HUGE breakfast and went exploring around the area.  John made friends with a horse and I got attacked by a rooster.  Poor John wanted to climb every single mountain that was surrounding the hotel. We didn't end up climbing any hills or mountains but we did take a nice hike though the Coco-Cayambe National Park. We saw more Llamas and some cows too. The walk was along a river and it had some beautiful waterfalls. After the walk it was time to head back to Quito. The trip home took about four hours this time because we were dropped off at the opposite end of the city. At home we made a delicious vegetarian chili with all the produce from the market and we talked about where we wanted to go next... : )

(Just a reminder that pictures that go along with this blog and our other adventures can be found on my (Amber's) Facebook)

Interesting fact:  Even though Ecuador is only about the size of Oregon, it is home to about 16 percent of all the world's bird species.  That's about 1600 different types of birds.  Just in the Papallacta area, there were around 200 different species.  Perhaps the most interesting we've seen so far are the many different types of humming birds.