Our Best Eats - Bolivia & Peru

Part of me was dreading Bolivian food. We hadn't heard a single good thing about it. We'd been told that it was boring, uninspiring, and likely to make you seriously ill. Even Lonely Planet had little good to say. So it was with great apprehension that we ordered our first Bolivian meal, at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Tupiza, and with caution that we raised our forks to our mouths.

Well, what can I say? There must be something seriously wrong with all those other travellers – with their taste buds, digestive systems and their attitude to food in general. Bolivian food was fantastic – I'd go as far as to put it in my Top 3 (along with India & Thailand). We ate the majority of our meals in markets and from street stalls, and got the chance to try so many new things, each one as delicious as the last. And so cheap too! So many people stay well clear of market food for fear of becoming ill. These people are seriously missing out.

La Chacra – this was our first proper meal in Bolivia, in a little town called Tupiza. La Chacra is a restaurant that opens only on Sundays to serve good, cheap, traditional Bolivian food. People come from miles around to eat there. Karl had chicken and cow tongue in a spicy sauce, served with potatoes, chunos (little black potatoes) and salad. I had barbecued goat, potatoes and white beans. The food was spectacular. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better introduction to Bolivian food.

Pollo Picante – This is chicken in a South American-style curry sauce. It wasn't spicy, but it was incredibly flavourful. We had it at a little stall outside the train station in Tupiza, and it cost about 3pounds.

Api – This is a hot breakfast drink made from purple maize and flavoured with lemon, sugar and cinnamon. Tastes like Christmas in a mug.

Buñuelos – Eaten with api, buñuelos are deep-fried, doughnut-like pastries drizzled with syrup. Not the healthiest breakfast, I know, but so so good.

Fried trout – Apparently Lake Titicaca is known for its trout. We had some at a restaurant by the waterfront, which was pretty nice. But the next day we decided to give the market version a try, and it was a million times better. She battered and fried it in front of us, and served it up with rice, homemade chips, salad and chilli sauce.

Fruit boat – A healthy dessert. Yummy fresh fruit (watermelon, mango, pineapple, papaya, kiwi & strawberry), covered in fruit yoghurt, with a squirt of fresh cream and a sprinkling of coconut. Oh, and a cherry on top, of course.

Jelly desserts – Less healthy desserts, these are basically jellies that taste like sweets. The yellow and brown one tastes like custard and chcocolate. The dark traffic light one is strawberry and bubblegum, and the light traffic light one is sort of sherbet flavoured.

Salteñas – These aren't too disimilar to the empanadas we'd had in Chile and Argentina. Pastries filled with meat and vegetables. Great snack, especially with chilli sauce and a glass of Coke.

Chorizo sandwiches – This is one of the best things we've eaten on our entire trip, we had it at the market in Sucre three mornings in a row, even though it gave us the most awful garlic burps for hours afterwards. Super-fresh chorizo, fried up and served in a bun with salad, pickled red onions, fresh chillies and mayonnaise. They even dip the bread in the chorizo juices first. It was savoury, tangy and spicy, absolutely incredible. My mouth waters just looking at the photo again. It cost 2pounds for two! Why can't we get food like this in England?

Hot market drinks – Chorizo sandwiches were followed up by mysterious hot drinks at another stall. It was almost like watching an alchemist, with the lady mixing together different coloured liquids and syrups and powders (we still don't know what any of them were) to create unusual but delicious hot drinks.

Fried potato cakes – Another breakfast dish, these were being fried up and served at a road-side stall in Uyuni. There was a round one with an egg in the middle, and a flat one which was potato, frankfurter sausage and vegetables. You get one of each on a plate with some shredded salad and chilli sauce.

Peach juice - In some Bolivian markets they have drinks stalls selling all manner of fruit juices. One of the best was the peach juice, which isn't actually fresh peach but tinned. The juice itself is a sweet and refreshing peach nectar, and at the bottom is half a tinned peach. It's absolutely delicious (unless you don't like tinned peaches).

Peru

We didn't get to try quite as many amazing new dishes in Peru, but I think that's mainly because we were in much more touristy towns like Cusco (near Machu Picchu) and Lima (the capital). There weren't as many markets and street stalls, and most of our meals were eaten in touristy restaurants. The food in these places was still really good, just not quite as exciting. If we'd had more time to explore, I'm sure we'd have found plenty of delicious treats.

Ceviche – Ceviche is raw fish and seafood marinated in citrus juices, usually with flavourings like coriander and fresh chilli. The acidity from the juices starts to cook the fish, but it's only added just before serving so that it doesn't cook too much. We had ceviche in a few different places, and it was always amazing. In Peru they serve it with dried corn kernels, sweet potato and lettuce. If you're not afraid of raw fish, I'd definitely recommend this. In my opinion, it's even better than sushi.

Punto Azul – Ok, so this is actually ceviche again, just somewhere different. We read about a restaurant called Punto Azul in Lima and decided to try it out. Turns out it's really really popular, and we ended up waiting almost an hour and a half to be seated. I don't think I've ever bothered to wait that long for food, but this was definitely worth it, and not just because portions were big enough to take leftovers home for dinner! Karl ordered their special ceviche, which comes covered in a tangy red sauce. I had a hot dish of seafood cooked in a tomato and cheese sauce – it's not the sort of thing I'd normally go for but it was amazing.

Sushi – Even though it's not quite as good as ceviche, I'll still always love sushi. Lima's right by the coast, so the seafood is really fresh, and it just made sense to make the most of this and splash out on some sushi. It was one of our last dinners abroad, so we treated ourselves to a big sharing platter and stuffed ourselves. We overate and went home feeling like we could quite happily never eat seafood again. Less than 24-hours later we were craving ceviche again.

Chicha – We had this to drink with our meal at Punto Azul. Before we went, people had recommended drinking beer with ceviche. But when we got there, everyone seemed to be drinking a strange, dark purple drink. Naturally we joined in and ordered a big jug. Turns out it's quite like a cold version of that api drink we had for breakfast in Bolivia. It's really refreshing with ice.

Juice of quinoa, maize, apple and pineapple – We first tried this hot breakfast drink at a stall in Bolivia, but the best version we had was in Peru. It's the colour of cloudy apple juice, and quite thick and juicy like a smoothie, very filling.

Potato & egg breakfast – Quite a simple meal, served by a woman on a street who has a basket full of boiled potatoes and eggs. She peels both and chops them into a little bowl. You can then add salt and coriander sauce to your liking.

Inka Cola – A luminous yellow fizzy drink with a bubblegum flavour (nothing like Cola really). Wish they had it at home.

Potato and fried cheese – This was a snack that we bought at a bus station on our way from Bolivia to Peru. It was the middle of the afternoon and we hadn't eaten a thing since our early breakfast that morning. This snack comes in a plastic bag, and it's just boiled potatoes and chunos (those black potatoes), and a big flat circle of fried cheese. You get a little bag of chilli and coriander sauce to pour over it. So tasty, especially when you're starving.

Fish & lentils – Another amazing market meal. It was a two-course set meal, cost about 3pound between us. The starter was a tasty potato soup with chunks of delicious fatty pork. The main was fried fish served with lentils, salad, rice and a wedge of lemon.

Oh, and one last thing. We were only in Argentina for five days, so we didn't get the chance to sample much there. But one thing we did try and love was tamales. They are a corn-based snack with a meat, potato and chilli filling. The whole thing is wrapped, steamed and served inside corn husks. Like a delicious little parcel, mmm mmm.

So that brings us to the end of our food adventures. We've had plenty of great food experiences, and some absolutely outstanding ones. We hope you've enjoyed reading about them. After eating our way around three continents, we're now rediscovering the joys of home food. Good cheddar, pork pies, our favourite chilli sauce, proper tea, home-cooked curries, toast with marmite! God, I love food.

No entiendo

“I don't understand”

In our first few days in Chile, this was one of our most used Spanish phrases.

To be fair, I had learnt it at high school. I'd even done an AS-Level, although I got a D. But all that was over 6 years ago, and apart from a week in Barcelona I've never had the opportunity to practice it. So, when we arrived in Santiago, I felt like I barely remembered a thing. It doesn't help that Chileans are renowned for speaking super-fast and dropping their S's (much like how we might sometimes drop the 't' when saying 'water'). So even if people were saying something I'd learnt before, I wasn't likely to recognise it.

Karl's situation was even worse. Let's just say that he'd paid so little attention to any language classes at school that we may as well say that he's never tried to learn a second language before. Beyond being able to count to 100 (he learnt while we were in Barcelona) and say the usual “pleases' and 'thank yous', he didn't know a word. For him, grammar was a complete mystery.

So our Spanish tutor Jesus had quite a job on his hands. I badly needed to refresh my memory (the knowledge was in there somewhere, I was sure of it) and Karl was desperately in need of some education.

On our first day, we went through the phrases that you might use to introduce yourself to someone. Talking about where you're from, what you do, your age, and so on. Unfortunately, Karl was running into some difficulty with regards to pronunciation. The tutor asked Karl his age, in Spanish, The phrase is 'Cuantos años tienes?' and in English it translates literally into “How many years do you have?”. The squiggle over the 'ñ' creates a 'ny' sound. For me, the answer was “Tengo 25 años” - “I have 25 years”. Karl's answer was a little more unusual.

TUTOR: Karl, cuantos años tienes?

KARL: Tengo 27 ano.

TUTOR: No, you need to pronounce it 'años'. Ano means 'arsehole'. You've just told me you have 27 arseholes.

To be fair, he hasn't got that one wrong since.

There was quite a lot to cram in over the five-day course, and with 4 hours a day as well as a couple of hours practice each evening, it wasn't easy. It was well worth it though. I realised that I remembered a lot more than I'd given myself credit for, it had just needed some unearthing and refreshing. And although the amount of new information could often be overwhelming, and the difficulty of trying to remember it all was often frustrating, Karl's come quite a long way. Don't get me wrong, we're not discussing politics with the locals or anything, but we can at least order stuff from the deli counter, buy a bus ticket, have simple conversations and get our laundry done without too much difficulty (there are good days and bad days). Karl even managed to get a decent haircut, asking for everything in Spanish!

Now, to make up for not having any photos so far, or in my previous post, here are some snaps of the gorgeous views from Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill in the middle of the city. You can see the whole city, with a backdrop of the Andes. Truly magnificent.

Check out that view!

We travelled up the hill in the 'funicular', which is basically a fancy way of saying 'train on an inclined track', and it basically transports you up steep hills with ease (and some creaking):

Furnicularing

We'd been told that the walk down was quite pleasant, but unfortunately we took totally the wrong path (there were hoof marks, so I'm thinking it was perhaps a horse path?) and ended up scrabbling and scooting cautiously down mud paths and through bushes. Once we'd got down to the bottom of this 350m hill, we were faced with a wire fence and a steep drop to the road, but luckily there was a happy looking young, stoner couple sitting on a log and staring into space who very kindly pointed out a little exit path. I'm surprised there weren't any signs in English at the top of this path telling people NOT to go down it (there was lots of stuff in Spanish, none of which we understood), but I guess this just proves how important it is to learn Spanish before you travel to South America.

Part of our path downhill. What do you mean 'Where is it?'

And yes, those things ARE spiky.

After Santiago we journeyed on to a little coastal town called Valparaiso where we spent a lovely day wondering around the hills and riding more inclined railway thingies, except here they were called 'ascensors':

Oh, and I couldn't resist making Karl pose for this photo:

We also used our Spanish to buy a huge selection of food from the market. For 5000 Chilean pesos (about £6.50), we bought half a kilo each of cherries, tomatoes and avacados, 250g of olives, some chilli sauce, a red pepper, minced meat, loads of bread and a piece of lemon pie. Karl cooked up a delicious batch of chili and guacamole, and the rest of the evening was spent tucked up in bed, watching cable TV (very pleased to find an over-the-top episode of Nigella's new series, where she wears a blue outfit to match her blue kitchen. Read this article about her yesterday, which I enjoyed).

Tomorrow we're joining a 4-day tour which will take us to San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile, via various sights and points of interest.

Our Best Eats - Thailand

Altogether, we were in Thailand for about 6/7 weeks. We left and re-entered the country so many times that I have almost a full page in my passport of just Thailand stamps.

From our first meal, a delicious red curry on the train from the Malaysian border to Bangkok, I just knew that when I got round to writing it, my food post would be like me: bursting at the seams.

Red Curry – we found an amazing place in Bangkok, near Khao San Road (backpacker district) called apple, which served some of the best Thai food we had on the whole trip. Our favourite was the red curry, filled with yummy crunchy vegetables like Thai aubergine, and so spicy that it made my lips numb.


Whiskey shakes – another tasty offering from apple. When I first saw it on the menu, I’ll admit I was dubious. But when the table next to us ordered a pitcher, I quickly changed my mind. It’s basically a fruit shake (fruit blended with ice) and whiskey. The blueberry and lychee flavours were best, and came with juicy little jelly sweets. We couldn’t resist going back for these again on our final visit to Bangkok.

Pad Thai – for anyone who isn’t familiar with this, it’s a popular egg-fried noodle dish with peanutty-tamarind flavours. You can have it with tofu, chicken or prawns, and Bangkok’s swanky mall Siam Paragon does an awesome one.

Market food – Once a week in Chiang Mai, everyone flocks to the Sunday walking market for dinner. There’s a huge variety of food, and our favourites included barbequed Thai sausage, pork kebabs with a garlic, chilli and green-pepper marinade, and steamed pork buns.


Fruit shakes – Couldn’t get enough of these. At the Sunday walking market we found the most mindblowingly good passion fruit shakes. Meanwhile, the little restaurant round the corner from massage school did incredible watermelon shakes. In both cases, the drinks are made simply by blending fruit with ice until it becomes a thick shake. It’s so simple, but the fruit flavours are so intense that every time I took that first sip, I just couldn’t get over how amazing they were. Definitely on my list of things to recreate when I get home! The only downside was the brain freeze from drinking them too fast…


Mango & Sticky Rice – Sounds dull, I know. But the rice is coconut rice, and it’s topped with a slightly sweet coconut sauce, and the mango is fresh and sweet. We learnt how to make it in our cookery course, so I can (hopefully) prove that it’s delicious when I get back!

Everything we made at our Thai cookery class – if we do say so ourselves. No, seriously though, it was really freaking good.


Deep fried pork special homemade – I love this not just for it’s ridiculous name. It’s chunks of pork, deep fried so that they're crispy on the outside but moist and delicious within. It comes with a sort of tangy mayonnaise-like dipping sauce, a spicy chilli sauce, and a selection of crunchy pickled vegetables. Really really good.

Roast chicken sandwiches – not really Thai food, I know. But the roast chicken sarnies I had in Pai following an afternoon at a waterfall are definitely amongst the best meals I had in Thailand.


Homemade Thai food – On our last night in Chiang Mai, Karl’s kickboxing trainer Krupong invited us for dinner at his house. His wife cooked the best meal we had in Thailand. There were plates of beautifully stir-fried vegetables, pork mince flavoured with Thai basil, bowls of Tom Yum soup (spicy and tangy, our two favourite flavours) and so much more.

Pandan cake – Five minutes down the road from Krupong’s house, our bike ran out of petrol. Karl and Krupong went to buy some more fuel while I watched a terrible Thai soap with his wife and kids (they’re SO cute!). About 15 minutes later they returned with bags of small, light green cakes for dessert. Pandan is a leaf used for flavouring and colouring Thai desserts. The cakes were lovely and soft, and came with a Pandan-flavoured custard too. Plus they’d bought some bags of a hot milky drink – no idea what it was, but it was the perfect pre-bedtime drink.

Wasabi spinach – I had this at Tianzi’s, the macrobiotic restaurant where I went with my massage class on our graduation day. It’s basically spinach cooked with sesame and wasabi. The wasabi was like a punch in the nose, but I absolutely loved it.

Papaya salad – This was one of our favourite Thai dishes before we even left London, but the one we had in Bangkok was mindblowing. It was a dinky restaurant that specialises in this one salad, and it does it really well. Grated green papaya, mixed with green beans and shredded carrot, with a spicy and tangy dressing. Topped with crushed peanuts. This one had salted fish added to it for extra flavour, which was surprisingly good.


Hot herbal drink – Karl discovered this through his kickboxing teacher, who took them to a little stall after their morning running session for a mug of hot herbal drink. We don't actually know what's in it, but it's spicy, and I suspect black pepper is one of the key ingredients. We liked it so much that it became part of our daily routine – we'd ride along for a mug of herbal tea, hop back on the bike to grab some breakfast, and then Karl would drop me off to massage school.


Banana fritters – why don’t we have these at home? I had them on two occasions. We made them in our cookery class, and I also bought a batch for breakfast one morning in Pai. Slices of banana, battered and deep fried, then sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.

Another beach, another waterfall - just another week in Vietnam

Although we had a good time in Saigon, it's a really busy city and after a few days we found ourselves flicking through the guidebook for somewhere peaceful and pretty to chill out. Preferably a beach.

We chose the little coastal town of Mui Ne partly because it's just a few hours from Saigon, but mainly because of all the fantastic reviews we'd read about its beaches online. In fact, our Lonely Planet guide went as far as to describe it as 'the best all-round beach in Vietnam'. So you can imagine how excited I was when we checked into our hotel and saw a quiet little sun lounger area with steps leading down to the beach - perfect! Until I walked over to see the sea crashing roughly against the bottom half of the steps and not a grain of sand in sight. That's not a beach, it's just a bit of seafront!

The tide finally went out at around 4pm, leaving a narrow strip of sand littered with bits of driftwood, the odd shell, plastic cups and pieces of polystyrene. Hardly paradise. Although to be fair, if you ignored this bit, the view in general was quite nice, and we spent the majority of our stay gazing out at it from beside the hotel pool.


We did discover a nicer stretch of beach about 10 minutes away, but a lot of it's taken up by bigger beach resorts. We also hired a motorbike to visit the red sand dunes nearby, and had another go at playing Indiana and Jones. We rented out plastic sheets from some kids and took turns riding down the dunes, although we'd foolishly decided to go in the early afternoon and the baking heat meant our fun didn't last very long.

After about two turns each we were hot and bothered, covered in sand, and just about ready to jump back into the pool!

I know you probably all think we're having a whale of a time with all this glorious sunny weather every single day, but it often gets too much and some days we're too hot to want to do anything at all. Most days it's around 34C! Believe it or not, we miss the weather back home - apparently it's only just hitting 24C in London, which sounds very appealing when you're melting on the other side of the world!

With this in mind, we headed inland to the hills of Dalat for a few days, where the weather is a lot cooler (around 21C) and the views are absolutely stunning. Here's a round up of our stay there:

We had a picnic lunch at Datanla waterfalls. The falls were cool, but the best bit was the rollercoaster ride that you can take to get down to them - such a genius idea!


We also visited Cam Ly waterfalls which was a total disappointment unfortunately - fake, gimmicky and smelly. And they had this poor old horse painted up like a zebra!

We had a wander around the local market. It's not huge, but it's possibly one of the best markets we've visited. We bought candied kiwi and strawberries, the best strawberry shake I've ever had, and ate a delicious lunch of braised pork and rice.

Dalat is surrounded by enormous green hills, and the best way to take in the views turned out to be via a cable car ride. We took far too many photos of course. I've selected just a couple of the best for you here:

There wasn't much to do when we got to the other end, so we sat in a little cafe and had a cup of artichoke tea, which is a Dalat specialty and surprisingly nice.


We also had a lot of noodle soup with wonton dumplings, pork-filled baguettes, strawberry wine, Vietnamese coffee, banana cake and Dalat-produced red wine. All in all, it's probably been our favourite place in Vietnam so far!