Adjusting to life Sydneyside: first impressions of eating in Sydney

So after 6 months, unemployed, homeless and travelling around the world eating and drinking in some of the best restaurants we have finally arrived in Australia to settle down for a bit.

This is the main reason that this blog has taken a bit of a hiatus, because since we left China life has been a bit of a whirlwind. We've gotten married (again), found jobs, found a place to live and started settling into life in Sydney. 

Now we have bought everything we need to complete our new place, including an amazing fridge which at some point I may write an ode to on this blog because, in terms of my ideal kitchen, it is definitely close to being everything I have ever dreamed of (sad or what!!). I am hoping that from now on my weekends are going to be less taken up wandering aimlessly around Ikea remembering the words of Tyler Durden in fight club, so I am hoping to have a bit of time to write a few pieces for the blog again.

Shanghai Surprise: Mr and Mrs Bund

Our final stop on the world tour was the excellent city of Shanghai. This was a lot more like we imagined China would be like, it is a far cry from the more historical feel of Bejing and Xian and a lot more like Blade Runner with smog frequently hiding the tops of the many high rise buildings, most of which are covered with neon lights, although there are currently no flying cars circling them.

Shanghai at first glace looks like any other big city in the world, with fancy new buildings and high rises springing up all over the city. Apparently at one point around 10 years ago there where more large cranes in Shanghai than in the rest of the world put together.

Bejing - great chinese food, but Maccy D's is the recommended breakfast.

Welcome to Bejing ... hold on, where are all the tall buildings? For some reason I was expecting a high rise or two, I am stood in the centre of Bejing and there is nothing taller than 4 or 5 stories. Part of this may be the smog which is circling overhead, obscuring my view and meaning that taking photographs is a little tricky, but I am fairly certain that most of the reason is apparently nothing in the centre of Bejing can overlook the forbidden city, which is where the Emperors used to reside.

The second thing I noticed is that although the hotel has wifi it does not have access to facebook or instagram, the Great Firewall of China appears to have seen to that. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a total disaster, I am not addicted to facebook (honest) but I do like to be able to boast to all my friends about how nice the places I have been are and how great all of the food I have been eating is.

Viajante, great food in unlikely places

A dark corner of the east end of London is a strange place to find one of London's most interesting  restaurants. Claiming to serve a (very) modern take on Portuguese cuisine Viajante, fittingly for us after our recent excursions, meaning "the traveller", is based in the old Tower Hamlets town hall. The frontage is very impressive and the dining room is quite grand although the chairs do look like they may be ex council stock. The main menu choices you have are whether you want 6 or 9 courses (we obviously went for the more is better plan) however you have no real indication of what the courses are. Once that is sorted the only thing that remains is to decide if you want a matching wine (much better value than buying it by the bottle) then you should sit back relax and enjoy a crazy culinary adventure.

Dinner by Heston? I bet he'll serve snails again!

There is no such thing as a sure thing in life, but you can usually bank on a couple of things at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant, 1) there are going to be snails 2) there is probably going to be a lot of dry ice and 3) I am going to really enjoy my meal there.

Our trip to Dinner by Heston (which shortly after my trip appeared at number 7 on the world's top 50 restaurant list) was a lunch time visit to celebrate our return to London and also the arrival of my soon to be in-laws in London. We booked in on one of the very reasonable lunchtime set menu deals which includes 3 courses for 36 pounds.

The rise and rise of the great British Gastropub

If you're British and you've not been down to your local pub  for a few years chances are it has changed a bit. Since the tightening of drink driving laws pubs have been starting to die out in smaller villages where people used to drive for the beer and the roadside pubs who in there heyday were a stopping point for a refresher on an afternoon jaunt are now all extinct.

The villages near the place where I grew up, on the edge of the Peak District, near Alton Towers are no exception, pubs that used to serve walkers a couple of beers as they trekked through the peaks or Alton Towers guests a swift half while the traffic died down are pretty much gone. In many places the locals were also staying staying at home and drinking cheap booze from the supermarket rather than walking to the pub to get a pint.

6 Days in beautiful Buenos Aires, living it up.

From the moment we set foot in South America I think we had both been looking forward to our last stop, Buenos Aires, quite a lot of the travellers we have bumped into on our way round have told us how great it is although I should counter this by saying that several other people told us it was their least favourite place in South America.

The city itself is fairly modern, especially in the centro area where many of the government buildings and shopping streets reside. At times the buildings could be anywhere in Europe and many of the buildings with their grey slate roof tops would not be out of place in the center of Paris.

Best and worst of South America

Now that we are safely back in the UK I thought I should do a little Q and A with myself, thinking about our time in South America to get an idea of what we both enjoyed and what we would probably do differently if we were doing it again. I got the idea for most of the questions from the things that people have asked since I got back.

1) What was the biggest surprise?
The prices. We were lead to believe that we could survive for 50 quid a day between us but because we chose to shun tourist menus and also because of our fairly hectic schedule, which saw us either travelling or visiting another tourist site, I think we spent close to double that.

Private dining at devils point, Uruguay

The longer you are on the road for the more blasé you become. We've tried hard not to make too many errors on our trip but our arrival at Punto del Diablo, after a 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo, indicated that the plan we came up with while we were hungover in Colombia about 3 weeks ago, may have not been made with access to as much information as we needed.

The first minor issue we were aware of, it is now Autumn here, we noticed it in Buenos Aires, and certainly in Montevideo (where we got caught in a couple of massive downpours) but it was even more apparent in Punto del Diablo as it was cool, cloudy and the wind was gusting strongly. This change in the climate had lead to a more major issue, the tourist season was over. This was starkly indicated to us as we disembarked the bus by a number of the restaurants in the centre of the fishing village being boarded up for the winter!

Buenos Aires, where dollars are king

We arrived at our final stop in South America, Buenos Aires, after a short ferry crossing from Colonia de Sacremento in Uruguay. Watching the city come into view on the far side of the river was definitely a mixed emotions thing, I am not going to miss the endless packing and unpacking but the day to day experiencing new things is definitely going to be a loss.

On the advice of several people we have spoken to on the road we arrived carrying dollars. I was a bit confused/worried about this as no one mentioned this when we were in Mendoza or Salta, and also because if we withdraw dollars we pay an exchange fee and then (in sane parts of the modern world) you pay another fee when you convert the dollars into whatever currency you are using.

Colonia de Sacremento.

The last stop on our brief Uruguayan excursion was Colonia de Sacramento. This is a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the Rio Plata which was originally set up by the Portuguese to smuggle things into Buenos Aires. It's main function has changed a bit since then but people still flood across from buenos aires on a regular basis with Several ferries a day crossing the river.


Colonia is now more of a holiday location with many people from Montevideo and Buenos Aires owning the beautiful river front properties. The other reason the Argentinians were apparently flocking there was because in Uruguay you can withdraw dollars, which is now impossible across the river (driving the exchange rate sky high) the downside being that the queues at the cash points are usually long and people tend to spend at least 10 minutes in the booth (we waited an hour in a queue of 5 people!). At the time this seemed pretty crazy but for reasons I will cover in my next blog it now makes sense.

Montevideo, it's a long way from Iguassu

So, we're in Uruguay! No idea why, I guess we fancied another couple of passport stamps and trying out a different mode of transport.

Whoever said it was better to travel than arrive has never tried getting to Montevideo from Iguassu. It was not a great deal of fun, it involved an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires (which arrived at 6:30am) followed by a ferry the following morning at 9.

Now had we been less panicky travellers we could have tried to get from the bus station to the ferry port on the same day, but our tickets indicated that we should be at the dock 2 hours before departure as that is when boarding starts.

Iguassu and the moon on a stick (ok maybe everything but the moon!)

After Rio we flew (I know what you are thinking about budget but this was less than 80 US dollars each) to our second and final brazilian stop, foz do iguaçu or the iguassu falls.

The falls sit near the Paraguayan, argentinian and brazilian border with the latter two countries sharing the falls (80% are on Argentinian land and 20% are on Brazilian turf)

They are massive, to see them properly takes at least a day and a half, and we were told that you have to view them from both sides, on the Argentinian side you get really up close and personal with the falls, there is also a solid 8 or 9 km walk to see all of the separate waterfalls where as in Brasil you can see pretty much the whole falls from one vantage point. On both sides you are going to get wet, if you take a speed boat to get a closer look (i would recommend it) you are going to get completely drenched so take a spare set of clothes or stuff that dries quickly (at least you dear reader are forewarned, we just got soaked and had to live with it).

On the tourist trail in Rio

As our time in Rio was short we decided to spend one day on an organised tour which covered most of the major tourist attractions. We spent 150 real each (a budget blowing 50 pounds) to go to see "Christ the redeemer", Santa Teressa, the tiled Selaron steps and sugar loaf mountain (or rather Rio from sugar loaf mountain) over the course of an afternoon. Entry to Christ and the sugar loaf comes to around 75 real and this was covered in the price so the other 75 went on a tour guide and the minibus which drove us around all day.

Whether this expense was necessary or not is debatable as the bus service in Rio (once you get the hang of it) is excellent and at a set price of 3 real a trip, not particularly expensive. I doubt you could cover all 4 things in 1 day on public transport though.

The biggest problem with deciding to do a tour is that you only get a set period of time at each of the places and both sugar loaf and Christ are susceptible to being ruined by cloud.

When my baby smiles at me...

I go to Rio, de Janeiro (if, like me, this means nothing to you watch this you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCYxTg6svXg ). When my fiancée started singing this at me while in the immigration queue at Rio airport I though he was doing a really bad job of singing something I should recognise but actually she was doing a fairly decent impression of the guy on the piano in that video (good luck getting it out of your head, it has stayed with me for days)

Our arrival in Rio was a mixed emotions kinda thing, we were sad to be leaving Colombia and also sad because we only have 4 weeks left of our trip, however the prospect of seeing Rio was something we were looking forward to, despite the fact that it is one of the more costly destinations we planned on visiting.

We chose to stay for 4 nights in the Bohemian Santa Terresa district, which is set in the hillside overlooking the Centro business district, the lively Lapa area which is where much of the partying takes place at the weekend an Rio's funky modern concrete cathederal (which lights up with all sorts of neon colours ay night). Sadly although we arrived on a Saturday because the flight was an overnight one from Colombia we only got 2 hours sleep on the plane and so failed to make the most of the Lapa nightlife, although we did make it as far as Nuevo Chapela, a Lapa restaurant focusing on traditional Brazilian dishes.

Crepes, waffles and the final days in Colombia

We really have loved Colombia. The cities have had a very modernised, more developed feel than much of South America, for me one of the few downsides was the fact that on the northern coast a hot water tap is seen as unnecessary. Now I accept that the temperature is 35 degrees pretty much every day, but stepping into a freezing shower, although refreshing, isn't something I want to be forced into. It is not as if a big black tank on the roof (let alone a couple of simple solar panels) would not be hot in seconds.

This one pretty minor gripe aside the northern coast has a great outdoorsy feel, as I said in a previous blog lots of the squares and streets fill up at night with people eating and drinking, most restaurants also have outdoor seating areas which get pretty crowded at night.

Playa Blanca and the meaning of everything

Cartagena is one of the few places in South America I think I could probably spend a year or two living in. The city has a nice friendly vibe despite the fact it is a bit touristy. In the evenings several of the squares fill up with people drinking store bought beers and vendors selling all sorts of food (everything from kebabs and burrito wraps to sweet coconut cake dessert) and drinks to save you walking back to the beer shops.

There are also a number of guys in the streets who have cousins or an uncle in the Uk, Australia, America or wherever you are from, who will get you "everything" you could want. This ranges from helping you organise trips, finding restaurants, arranging massages, selling you drugs and organising a prostitute (I only know this because one guy felt the need to explain what "everything" was despite me telling him I understood what he was implying). Obviously you will pay a heavy premium for such services which we found out when our friend Mike used one of these guys book his trip to Playa Blanca beach he paid 10000 pesos more than we did for the same trip!

Playa Blanca is on one of the Rosario islands and the boat out there should be 30000, with an extra 12000 pesos required or entry to the national park. You can also pay another 10000 to have lunch included although this is not strictly necessary as everywhere there offers you lunch for that price once you arrive (it is not a reservation required kinda place)

The beautiful Cartagena

The first thing you notice about Cartagena is the beautiful streets, everywhere you turn in the old town could be a postcard. We really enjoyed walking round every street soaking in the atmosphere.

If, like us, you have been somewhere even slightly off the beaten track (like Taganga) the second thing you'll notice is the price. Everything is pretty much twice the price here (1.5 times the price in Bogota). This is because tourism has hit the area. Toronto is only a 5 hour flight away and America is even closer so several hotels in the upmarket beachfront Bocagrande area cater for the week long, all inclusive, crowd. We, on the other hand, were staying in the more wallet friendly backpacker district around Media Luna street (which is also the red light district!)

So this isn't the most unspoilt part of Colombia in tourism terms, but this has some advantages. The tourist cash means that most of the colonial architecture is well maintained in the old city and there is a good selection of museums (although some of these are mainly in Spanish).

Taganga - the advantage of getting to know somewhere

After the amazing Galapagos snorkelling experience that we both thoroughly enjoyed we thought that, with our impending move to Australia, learning to scuba dive would be something we'd both like to do. With this in mind one of the cheapest places in the world to get an open water qualification is Taganga, near Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast.

We booked in and then read in the Lonely Planet that the food here was not great, this was a slight disappointment but there were plenty of other attractions in the area to keep us occupied, including the beautiful Tayrona national park which you can walk in (camping overnight if you want), as well as diving in the sea on its coast line. We spent a great day in Tayrona, walking in the jungle and on the beaches, the scenery is very dramatic and impressive, however when we were there it was a touch over cast and a bit cold to swim on the great beaches (be careful some of the beaches have strong currents and are not suitable for swimming, these are clearly marked!)

Bogota cuisine, meat and juice

As I mentioned already in my blog I really like the feel of Bogota. The people there seem friendly and the culture, sights, food and drink we found there were great.

One thing that really stood out was the meat. Many of the restaurants had grills which were inverted conical shaped bars coming to a point above a real fire with different levels for cooking things and keeping them warm. We also had a couple of really good lunches which were basically comprised of lots of meat. The first was from a grill restaurant on Jiminez called "la gran parillia de santa fe" where we started with tuna on top of guacamole (more or less). This tasted great and is really simple to make yourself on the road (I made it from scratch a couple of nights later with mashing up avocado, Tomato, red onion and some oil and serving with tinned tuna steak on top, definitely a good way to save cash). This was followed by something recommend by the waiter which was beef in a local sauce. The starter and main was more than enough lunch for both of us!

We also found that some restaurants have hot lunch plate specials which feature a combination of meats and sausage, another restaurant on Jiminez (whose name escapes me, which is my fault for waiting too long to write this up) served this for around 15-20 thousand pesos (around 7-8 pounds) and one of these lunches is more than enough for 2 people.

The final grill we went to was on Carrera 7, we only stopped because the guy was handing out free meat samples as we walked past (it certainly worked on me, after trying it I was in like a shot). We shared 1 between 2 of us and it was more than enough again. This was around the intersection with 17 Calle on the corner an all of the meat there was tender and excellently cooked.

The other thing we had loads of while walking around Bogota was fruit juice. Near our hostel were 2 smoothie/cocktail bars Yumi Yumi and Mora Mora. The cocktails in the former were great and there was a really friendly atmosphere for drinking in the evening, the smoothies in the latter we pretty awesome, and they had the option to add booze if you were in the mood (although we declined this) both also offered food (although cheap it was not brilliant).

So in summary Bogota lunches are usually big enough for 2, eating them alone would definitely be bad for you. To stay healthy there are some great juice bars (as long as you steer clear of the less healthy but very tasty cocktail option). I should also mention that Colombia has a pretty handy selection of local beers, club Colombia is a very tasty cerveza available as a blond and a red beer, both of which I would highly recommend.

Pictured below are the 7 pound hot plate dinner, a mixed grill and the guard and gates at the presidential residence

Taganga, Colombia. Cooking on the road.

I have to admit to being a bit lazy so far on this trip, we've eaten out a lot during our time on the road either due to lack of a kitchen or abundance of good, cheap places to eat.

Now we have arrived in Taganga neither if these things is true. There are not really any great places to get food here and we have a small kitchen in our room, well a gas ring, fridge and a sink, but you get the idea.

To be honest I fancied the challenge of sorting out a meal in this environment, there is no hot water, the cold water from the tap is not drinkable. There is no sharp knife, only a small frying pan and a larger lidded saucepan, a 4 litre measuring jug, no bowls (but we do have a large cup) and a chopping board that is so old and stained it would give my mother nightmares for months. Oh and there is only a single ring gas stove to cook on.

In the back of my mind i thought that a risotto may be the answer so I headed to the supermarket to see what I could find there. This was an interesting experience as the supermarket is not self service here, it is more like the old village shop where you tell someone what you want and they run off and get it for you. This is ok if your Spanish is acceptable, however for me it degenerated into a lot of "umms" and hand gestures to get what I wanted.

The haul I ended up with was...
2 chicken stock cubes
1/4 of a chicken (leg, bit of thigh, lot of rib)
1 bottle of butter flavoured cooking oil?!?!
2 Spanish onions
2 green peppers
4 plum tomatoes
Garlic
Parmesan
Rice (they only had one type, definitely not risotto)
5.5 litres of drinking water in a bag!

Planning when you only have one gas ring is pretty important, I needed it for hot water for washing up, for making the chicken stock, to help peel the tomatoes and of course for cooking the risotto itself.

First I put some water on the boil to make the chicken stock, while this was heating up I washed all the veges in tap water to get the worst of the dirt off before rinsing in drinking water. I then scored the tomatoes with a cross at the top and bottom and dropped them into the now boiling water for a minute or two. These were the removed and left to cool, when they were subsequently peeled. I then disolved the stock cubes in the water.

The biggest problem with the kitchen was actually the lack of any kind of sharp knife. Luckily I have my pen knife but the blade is at best 1 and a half inches long. I used this to chop the garlic, onion, pepper and tomatoes while the stock was boiling.

I used the jug to hold the rice while I rinsed it (we have no sieve so I poured the water off the rice using my fingers to stop the rice escaping) before putting the drained rice in the frying pan. I then put around 300ml of the stock in the frying pan with the rice (this pan is not on the heat) and put the rest of the stock in the jug.

Finally I prepared the chicken this was fun using only a penknife basically separating the thigh and leg by cutting most of the meat around the joint then pulling, i skinned these and left the meat on the bone, I then cut all the remaining meat of the carcass.

I heated some butter oil in the pan and added the onion and garlic, after the onion had softened I added the pepper and chicken and waited until the chicken had started to brown before adding the rice and half of the stock (something like half a litre) and the tomatoes. I then stirred this all in and put a lid on the pan and brought this to the boil before simmering for 2 hours while occasionally stirring and adding more stock.

Once finished it tasted pretty great, especially accompanied by a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon from concha y torro!

The total cost was around 20,000 Colombian pesos, or 8 quid but when you consider a steak and chips in a restaurant is only between 18 and 22 thousand I suspect I won't be going to the effort again in Colombia!

Pictured are the pan, the water bag, the finished risotto and the gas ring and preparation area.

Bogota, city of surprises

From Quito the plan had been to get busses through Colombia, this would have taken a couple of days and allowed us to see Ottavalo, where there is an apparently great market, Pasto and Popayan. Sadly the coffee pickers in the south of Colombia had other ideas and decided to go on strike blockading the two main northbound roads. So we once again decided to fly (so much for our good intentions of taking buses and saving money.)

We booked a hostel in La Candelaria area of Bogota, which is the main historic old town where most of the tourists go, as well as having a large student population. It is also blessed with an abundance of restaurants, juice/cocktail bars (depending on if it is day or night) and eating options to go with a pretty impressive nightlife scene.

The first thing we noticed when arriving was it was cold, well, cool. I had expected it to be sticky and tropical but because Bogota sits at around 2600m above sea level it has an average temperature of 14 Celsius.

The second thing that became apparent is that tourists appeared to be giving Bogota a miss and instead heading straight to Medellin or Cartagena and the rest of the Caribbean coast in the North. I think this is a shame because Bogota has a great vibe as a city and there is plenty to do with around 50 museums, including the excellent Museo de oro (museum of gold), as well as having a 2 hour free walking tour (in English) run by the central tourist information and gives information on a bit of South American and Colombian history while introducing you the main historical buildings.

There is also a hill (Cerro de Monserrate) in the city (near La Candeleria) which has a church (sanctuario de monserrate) on it and once you have taken the cable car or walked up you are treated to spectacular views over the whole of Bogota.

Food wise making a decision on where to eat was difficult with many nice looking places offering a variety of food.

There were a few things in Bogota I really wanted to eat. The first is a chicken soup called ajiaco which, like much of South America has its origins with the South American tribes (not the incas in Colombia, they did not get that far north) and the Spanish conquistadors who conquered them. The basis of the soup is a corn and vegetable broth (traditional indigenous Indian staples) with chicken added and served with pots of cream, avacado and capers (all Spanish additions) which you can add into your soup in quantities you want.

I had the one pictured at the bottom of the blog at a restaurant called Sanalejio on Jiminez ( the Main Street running down the side of la Candeleria) which was filling, tasty but not exactly haut cuisine. The idea of eating avocado floating in soup was interesting and not unpleasant.

The embrace and extend attitude of the conquistadors can be seen all over South America, with many of the churches are built on inka (or other indigenous) sites of worship. The church also incorporated a lot of traditional aspects into its art in South American churches with the sun and moon featuring strongly as they were also worshipped as part of the earlier religions here.

Anyway, I digress, I have to say that my first impressions of Bogota were very favourable (and not just because the cool temperature and inclement weather reminded me of Britain). In my next blog I'll go into the other food we had here and maybe a bit more about the city. Pictured below are the ajiaco and accompaniment, the church in bolivar square and 2 views of the city from the cerro de Monserrate.

Quito, journey to the middle of the world

Either side of our Galapagos trip we stayed in Quito, Equador. I think it is safe to say that it would be no-one's first choice holiday destination were it not for the regular flights to the Galapagos.

This is probably slightly unfair as the city does have several beautiful squares and a rather strange boast, in its northern suburbs it has "el mittad del Mundo" or "the middle of the world!"

The general ambiance of the historic centre with its grand buildings and squares is pretty relaxed although you'd be forgiven for thinking that every other person is a policeman of some kind, this includes the staff in the tourist information office!

Budget wise had been struggling to stay within our limits so we were glad to discover Almuerzos, this is a set lunch menu offered by most restaurants. The meal starts with soup, has a main course of fish (or meat, you do occasionally get a choice) with rice, usually a lentil or tomato sauce and some avacado slices on the side, it is served with a fruit drink of some description and sometimes even comes with a dessert. The whole thing usually costs less that 2 dollars per person and if you pick somewhere with plenty of locals inside it is usually pretty tasty.

In the evening we had several nights to explore the restaurants. We were given dire warnings about stepping out of the tourist zone, so we felt hemmed in to the historical centre where the restaurants are much of a muchness and a main costs between 7-14 dollars. Food is very much meat, some potato and veges an a slice or two of avocado.

There are two main groups of these restaurants, one on the main square in and near the archbishops palace commercial centre and the other is on the restored tourist street called La Ronda. The portions are usually massive in these places so if you have a small appetite skipping a starter would be a plan.

The pick of the restaurants were probably cafe Grand Plaza where I had a very good goat curry and "hasta la vuelta, senior" which had some good steaks and a decent seafood pasta but really we didn't have a terrible or brilliant meal while we were eating in the tourists areas.

Food wise the best find may have been the San Augustin heladoria which has loads of different sorbet flavours made from local fruits (such as cactus and passion fruit) and is definitely a great place to stop on a hot afternoon.

While we were in Quito our luck also ran out on the stomach front, so we only really did one excursion which was to the middle of the earth. We chose the cheap way to get there, which was 2 dollars each in bus fare, rather than the secondary option which was a 45 dollar taxi tour. The buses were very similar to catching the northern line in a morning but other than that got us there OK.

The middle of the earth itself is not really very impressive, it was designated by a group of Frenchmen who wanted a good triangulation point on the equator. They have built a whacking great stone building and marked the equator and a kind of theme park has grown up around it with shops and restaurants.

There are a couple of issues, 1) it is not technically on the equator and 2) the shops etc. don't really have much interesting stuff.

However five hundred metres down the road is the inti-ñan solar museum. This is actually on the equator and for 4 dollars a guide will take you through some equadorian history and show you a load of cool experiments you can do on the equator, such as draining water in the northern and Southern Hemisphere then on the equator, walking down the equator with your eyes closed (fiendishly tricky) and balancing an egg on a nail (surprisingly easy). I think had we paid the 45 bucks for a cab we'd have felt robbed but as it was only 4 dollars and 3 hours of our lives spent on buses it was probably worth while.

Next stop is Bogota, Columbia, which we are flying to despite the cost, mainly because the UK and Australian governments both have do not travel warnings for the border crossing in the south which we had planned to take a bus through.

The Galapagos, amazing things people used to (and in some cases still do) eat

We are pretty much half way through our trip here in South America. Leaving Lima and Peru behind we flew TAME (which is an achievement as getting tickets outside of their native Equador is a mission) to Quito in preparation for the main part of our trip, the Galapagos islands.

Rather than busking it and trying to get a late deal or DIY a trip when we were here this was the only tour we have booked in advance. We did this to make sure we got a spot and to guarantee an English speaking tour. We got our trip through Geckos because they had a 2 for 1 deal a while back (just when we were booking, which was lucky) but several other English speaking companies operate boats and tour services(intrepid and g adventures to name but two). You do have to do some kind of licensed tour as the national park in Equador is pretty strictly regulated and all boats have a set itinerary for the week.

Our tour was 6 days on the boat sailing around these amazing volcanic islands, with different walking and snorkelling activities each day. I should probably mention the food on board, which was predominately fish and tasted excellent was all caught locally (there are designated area for long line fishing, regulated by the national park). To be honest though this was very much secondary to the island themselves.

From the first landing it was easy to see why people flock to these islands, hundreds of animals with very few predators sit on the side of all of the paths. The first place we landed was surrounded by hundreds of red crabs. Rather than scuttle off these simply sat and watched as we walked past. I asked our guide if they were tasty, which he assured me they were but 10 years ago catching them and eating them was banned as they were on the brink of dying out. This ban appears to have worked wonders as we saw hundreds of them over the next week.

The islands and their animals have had a quite chequered history, after being discovered by Darwin lots of people used the islands for all sorts of sailing activities, pirates used it as a base, whalers used it as a safe harbour and people came to look at the wildlife.

Sadly the pirates and sailors dumped several different species for food (goats and pigs) on several of the islands which competed for the same food as the tortoises and iguanas and almost led to them dying out. The original visitors also took tortoises and turtles with them to eat on their long journey home.

In the last 30 years or so conservation has really taken off in the islands. The goats have been eradicated as have the pigs, although black rats (an accidental addition) still remain on the bigger islands. Tortoises and turtles have grown in number partially as part of a captive breeding program but also on their own, on a couple of the islands they are everywhere, in the roads, on the paths and in the bushes and like all the animals on the islands they weren't afraid of humans at all.

Snorkelling around the islands was also amazing, there are many different types of sea life to see, during my time there I swam with Sea lions, turtles, manta and sting rays, reef sharks, a hammer head shark and tropical fish too numerous to mention.

It was a great few days although on our tour it was a bit of a shame that no-one on our boat was particularly up for staying up after 8pm despite a well stocked bar, although it probably saved us some money and meant that we didn't put on even more weight (walks in the Galapagos are around 96% standing round taking photos and 4% actually walking). Definitely glad we guaranteed this trip early and built our itinerary around it, will definitely be something I remember for a long time.

Pictures below are some of my favourite animals, the red crabs, tortoises, marine iguanas, sea-lion and feedig time at the tortoises captive breeding program at the Darwin centre

Astrid, Gaston and the American moustache hunt

Lima was definitely growing on us. The restaurant scene in Miraflores was really very impressive and we had yet to try the pinacle. Astrid y Gaston is recommended by everyone. It is number 35 on the top 100 restaurant list, fodors raves about it, it is in our lonely planet AND the hostal owner said we had to go there.

To guarantee a table you usually have to book 3 weeks in advance but there is a bar which you can sit in and order from the restaurant menu as long as you get there earlish. We desperately wanted to go so we arrived at 6:30pm, 30 minutes before it opened. People who know me will think this was me panicking but for a change the eagerness was mainly on the part of my fiancée.

To be honest there was no need for this early arrival, we could have got there at 8 and got a table on this particular evening but this did mean that we got talking to an American woman who also turned up before they let anyone in at 7.

She was a regular there and as well as telling us about her favourite dishes she also old us about a hole in the wall seafood restaurant we had to try for lunch. Apparently it was so good the locals don't like telling people about it. She gave us a street address and a name, el begote (or the moustache) before she left to catch a flight to the States while we got on with enjoying our meal.

Moving onto the food Astrid and Gaston is certainly a case of how many people can't be wrong. The whole experience was truly excellent. I started with scallops in a slighty sweet sauce covered in dried (or maybe fried) carrots and a foam while my fiancée had octopus in a frothy sauce, sadly the food envy for my scallops was too strong and I was forced to change halfway through!

For main course I ordered a piece of beef which had been stewed until perfectly tender, the whole main was really very good. My partner had a very nice rare tuna steak with a creamy sauce.

The highlight of the whole thing was dessert. I had an amazing chocolate covered giant marshmallow on a biscuit base with a raspberry coulis (there is a sweet in the uk which is similar although not as big) this was served with hot chocolate poured over the top (which melts the choccy coating and ends up as a sauce). My partner had a really interesting postre called "the tomato who wants to be a dessert" this was a pear and raviloi tart topped with a tomato puree and served with basil ice cream which she claimed was one if the best desserts for people without a sweet tooth she had ever tried.

I think it would have been sad to pass through Lima without getting a chance to eat here so despite the time we wasted standing around outside I think it was worth blowing our budget for. Although again by Uk standards the price was pretty average, with a main costing between 20 and 30 pounds.

The following lunch time we took advice from the American lady and went looking for "El Bigote". Because we had a street address and a name we didn't bother checking the Internet or even a map to see if the directions we had made sense. They didn't, so we spent an hour and a half trudging the streets looking for it.

Eventually we were too hungry to continue (I am not a pleasant person to be around while hungry and my fiancée is similar) so rather than have a massive fight we picked a touristy restaurant and ate some dodgy seafood.

My fiancée was not yet ready to admit defeat though, using the restaurants wifi she looked up where we should be (about 75m from where we were) and the actual name of the place "la rincon de el bigote" which has the address José Galvez 529 and after abandoning most of our first lunch we headed off to try it.

It is the most unassuming place you can imagine but the food there is definitely something they should be shouting about. We had the giant clam ceviche starter (you order as many as you think you can eat) which was great, and followed it with their mixed fried seafood. This was light and fluffy in amazing batter. Everything was cooked wonderfully.

It was definitely worth the effort I just wish we'd found it an hour earlier so I could have tried things like the pulpo al olivio (octopus in puréed olives).

It wasn't the cheapest meal out with each clam costing 1pound fifty and the mixed seafood costing 8 pounds (much more expensive than our first lunch in the tourist place) but it is definitely worth it.

Pictured below are the scallops, octopus, beef, tuna steaks, chocolate marshmallow ball and the tomato who thinks he is a dessert from Astrid y Gaston. The front of El Riñcon el Begote and the clams and mixed fried seafood.

Lima, fine food by the sea and the deadly sins!

So, it turns out Lima, in deepest darkest Peru has a beach! Who knew? Well I guess anyone who has looked at their map, however I hadn't really been paying attention. I think this was mainly because I saw Lima as just a stop on the way to Quito and the Galapagos rather than a destination in its own right.

This was wrong because we found Lima to be a pretty darn good destination city. We were staying in up market miraflores, which is a pretty affluent neighbourhood full of embassy's and sea food restaurants. This was pointed out by the owner of our hostal, Miraflores house, who from his substantial girth clearly loved a good meal. He spent a solid hour marking every type of food and restaurant on a map for us as it quickly became clear we probably hadn't scheduled enough time for Lima if we wanted to eat all of the cuisines that were on offer.

On the first night we decided to go for a Chinese as it was close to the hotel, I was expecting a chifa, which is a budget style of Peruvian Chinese we've eaten a lot, usually costing at most a couple of dollars for a dish which is enough for two. However Wa Lok was a more traditional Chinese (the sort of dishes you would find in London's china town) but the prices were (for Peru at least) sky high (12-15 pounds a main course) and a little disappointing (the salt and pepper squid certainly was) and we promised ourselves we would do better the next day.

It is important to learn from you mistakes so at lunch the following day we went for the very traditional option of Ceviche. This is mainly served at lunch time at restaurants near to the sea. We went for a restaurant called Punta del Sal seafood, which is a three story place on the waterfront overlooking the beach.

The Ceviche for 2 people that we got was around 55 Soles (15 pounds), don't be fooled by the labelling of it as "snacking" in some menus English translation, the actual Spanish is more literally translated as "for sharing" and if you order this a main course is probably not necessary (if you are still hungry order more food after you have finished). The ceviche there had 5 dishes, raw white fish served with the traditional sauce of chilli, lemon, red onion as well as a more unusual thick orange creamy sauce. There was octopus served with avacado and tomato covered in a wonderful olive oil dressing and some boiled vegetables. The final dish and centre piece was a crab, potato and avocado cake topped with a boiled egg.

All of it was amazing, if you like sea food I really can't recommend something like this enough.

Our evening meal was also fish based, with all of the dishes having a theme from the seven deadly sins and various virtues. Pescardo Capitales is also one of the few restaurants to offer ceviche at night, which was why, a few days earlier, we'd booked in online (It was also recommended by the excellent fodors which for us is now very much a badge of honor). One thing to mention is that the restaurant is right on the (slighty dodgy) edge of Miraflores, so rather than walk it may be an idea to get a taxi.

Having had excellent ceviche at lunch we decided to go for something a bit different now we were here. We started with the 'little sins' which were prawn wantons. The batter isn't quite the same as the uk (different flour i think) but it is pretty good none the less.

I followed this up with another sin (a deadly one but not sure which), a really very good swordfish steak while my fiancée enjoyed a virtuous (can't remember which one either) seafood linguine which she described as the best pasta she'd had in South America so far (although this may be considered damning with faint praise).

Price wise this was not exactly within our budget, with the main courses costing between 50 and 70 Soles (12-18 pounds) but as a splurge I would recommend it.

Pictured below are the lunchtime cerviche, the wantons, the pasta and the swordfish.

Cuy, Valentines day (and food) in Arequipa

Valentines day this year found us in Arequipa. This left me with a bit of a problem in terms of booking somewhere nice, the place most people recommended was chi cha and those of you paying attention will know that we ate there in Cusco and weren't completely blown away by it.

In the end I used my best Spanish
(really not brilliant) to book a place called Paladar 1900 via Skype. In unsurprising news when we turned up there was no table for Barker, however Mr Parka did have a reservation we were able to take advantage of.

The setting was pretty romantic, a half barrel shaped room with lots of candles, my fiancee got an awesome chair too, which was pretty much a full winged armchair with an asymmetric back.

As a starter we shared an excellent octopus salad (which falls into the category of more excellent sea food from unexpected places as arequipa is 2500m above sea level). I followed this with a very good duck in orange sauce while my fiancée had an apparently less enjoyable fish on potatoes (thus proving the rule that seafood far from the sea is not usually a great plan.)

This was the day before our 3am start and trip to the colca canyon so we only had 1 pisco sour each (excellent as ever) and I left with a good impression of the restaurant, however my fiancée was less impressed. I think that if you go there meat rather than fish would be the option.

After our return from the colca canyon we were aware that our time in Peru was running short and we still had yet to try Cuy. After helping carry several guinea pigs out of the canyon (with limited success) we decided it was time to eat some before we left the Peruvian highlands (apparently in Lima it is less common and is not as good).

We'd spent a while building up to this moment, there were only 2 real questions, how do you want your guinea pig cooked? And secondly, do you want it "con cabeza" or "sin cabeza" (with or without its head)

We decided deep fried (cuy charcardo) rather than oven roasted or cut into pieces and served with sauce was the way to go with question one. However when it came to question 2 we both bottled it and had the head removed.

The guinea pig itself turned up with a great crispy skin (similar to Chinese crispy duck) and quite a dark meat which was similar to thigh meat on chicken or turkey (although a little fattier), my only criticism was the lack of meat (I know this will not be a surprise to anyone who has seen a guinea pig) but the actual food we did get off it was quite tasty, however I suspect this will be the last guinea pig we eat as I think I prefer chicken, beef and most other sorts of meat.

Traditional eating in the Colca Canyon

For some reason as this trip has gone on we've decided we like walking. This came as a shock to us as the thought had never really occurred to us before, but a trek in the countryside is something we both really enjoy (especially when you have better weather options than the Uk)

This revelation coupled with our recent indulgences meant that a trek in the colca canyon was high on our to do list during our time in Arequipa. Having read up on the subject we realised that not all treks into the canyon are the same. We (after much consideration) booked one that involved about double the usual amount of walking than a standard 3 day colca trek. We booked this through Pablo tours as they come highly recommended on trip advisor with most people commenting on how good the food was.

The other reason for doing this tour was the fact that it included some home stay elements and a small guided group rather than a large group where one slow person can ruin it for everyone (oh and they were the first tour company we came across who were open!)

One thing I did find bad about the experience is the fact that you have to leave Arequipa at 3am (yup, three in the morning!) on a bus on the first day but as our bus was not full this just meant that I got to sleep lying on the back seat as we drove up into the mountains.

It turned out that we were the only people on our tour so it was just us and Maria Jesus our guide, she explained that we'd probably not see any other tourists for the first day and a half as we were going in a completely different direction to the others (and walking for about double the time) our first day was a 5 hour trek, mainly down hill. "Easy" I hear you say, well, you'd be wrong! We descended around 1500m on a steep, narrow gravel track. After that my knees and ankles were aching after sliding around on all of the loose rocks.

As predicted we didn't see anyone else on the path or the dirt road we finally came to. The dirt road is new, completed 2 months before we got there, according to our guide Maria, it is precariously dug into the side of the mountain linking villages where transport was previously either mule or llama! Only 2 buses a week brave the journey (on Wednesday and Sunday) and we saw 1 pickup truck drive down it in the 2 days we were there.

Not even a dirt road reached our first home stay in the isolated village of llamadur, it was a kilometre away from the road, down a narrow path and across a pedestrian bridge over a rushing river.

The best thing about this isolation is that the 6 houses here are almost completely self sufficient with large gardens growing vegetables, fruit trees and cactuses. The also have a small menagerie of animals such as chickens and guinea pigs to provide eggs and food.

The meals we had while in Colca all started with a soup most were chicken and vegetable broth with either pasta or rice. All of these were really tasty and were served with the crunchy corn and a dip of chilli, red onion, tomato and lemon juice. Apparently the locals all put these in their soup in varying amounts depending on taste. The corn works kinda like croutons.

The main courses in the evenings we had were chicken in different sauces. first night we had a tomato and vegetable sauce with both rice and potatoes (fairly standard to have both of these in Peru). Apparently it wasn't one of their own chickens, but was one from the shops (price of progress) but even so the whole thing was tasty.

After a night sleeping in a stone hut with a gravel floor, a tin roof and a bed with 2 mattresses followed bu excellent pancakes and fruit for breakfast, we opted for 6 hours of walking and our number was increased by 4. Maria our guide purchased 4 guinea pigs from the house we stayed at as she said the ones in the city were much smaller! The idea being that she could breed these for food. Guinea pig is an expensive delicacy, once deep fried they sell for upwards of 15 pounds a meal (when a normal mail course is 6-10). This precious cargo was held in a cardboard box tied up with string, which she held as we walked along.

The second day was a bit of an effort, an hour and a half of climbing, 3 hours of flat followed by an excellent vegetarian lunch of soup followed by vegetables cooked in tomato sauce (at a family home with a very impressive view and herb garden) we then walked for 2 hours back down to the river where they had hot springs to revive us for the next days climb.

Our meal was the now obligatory soup followed by chicken with an orange sauce (surprisingly tasty) this would have been followed by an early night (we had 1500m straight up to climb the next morning) but disaster struck the guinea pigs had broken free and so we spent some time hunting them with torches in the dark. Sadly the dogs got 2 of them but Maria managed to re capture 2.

To escape the heat of sun we started the final climb at 5am, impressively we finished in a little under 2 and a half hours despite the fact that the previous days excursions were making our legs hurt. The climb, like the whole expedition was not easy, with lots of loose gravel and a steep incline, rather than steps.

I really enjoyed the whole experience, especially the food, it was a really good way to get a feeling for the more simple life of people in the colca canyon as well as giving a view of a more country diet.

Pictured below are the lunch soup and view on day 2, soup with all the trimmings, our room on the first night and a particularly impressive cactus!

Cusco eating

Cusco is a beautiful city with several picturesque plazas surrounded by mountains and blessed with some great restaurants and bars.

It is also quite a tourist influenced city, firmly established on the gringo trail as a staging post and good place to stay on the way to Machu Picchu. There is a lot more to the city than that though, many travellers find themselves staying a lot longer than they planned once they experience the city.

Because of the number of travellers there are also plentiful tourist restaurants offering tourist menus. Gemma and Tim clued us into the good value of Tourist menus in Peru while we were in Puno. These menu's are usually between 15 and 25 soles for 2 or 3 courses and a soft drink. You can find these is pretty much all of the tourist restaurants offering tourist fare in Cusco's main square.

These are great if you are travelling on a budget but to a certain extent you get what you pay for, although the meals are usually ok the are not haut cuisine. we tried a higher end 25 Sole menu which the consisted of a decent soup starter and followed by meat, potatoes and a couple of vegetables. The meat brochetas were good but the vegetables were bland and there was no gravy or sauce so it was a touch dry.

We decided after the tourist menu that it wasn't really enjoyable and that trying the local food was too important to us for us to eat too many more tourist menus. We decided to control costs by sharing starters and mains and not drinking too much alcohol.

After our dalliance and disappointment with the tourist menu we decided to try some of Cusco's more famed restaurants, starting with Chi cha. This is something of a Peruvian success story with a number of branches in the major Peruvian cities offering modern twists on standard Peruvian dishes.

The decor is certainly great as are the pisco sours. Our starter was a selection of 4 different fish dishes, which were very tasty. the mains we chose were a more traditional meat stew (for me), which was massive, tasty but not life changing. My fiancée also had a traditional dish, stuffed peppers with Andean cheese.

We even stretched to a dessert for the sake of research having and egg yolk caramel mousse with a merengue topping, this was literally the sweetest, richest thing I have ever eaten, even between 2 of us we failed to eat half of it!

For the money (40-60 soles, 10-15 pounds per main) chi cha is ok, but you have the feeling that you are paying a for the name, reputation and experience as much as for the quality.

The best food we had in Cusco was at a restaurant on the plaza de armas (in between maccy d's and kfc). Limo is Cusco's most surprising restaurant, despite being some 3000 metres above sea level and 7 hours drive from lake titicaca it has built quite a reputation for its sushi. There are seven different types of sushi roll to choose from ranging from the regular California rolls to a house concoction (Limo roll) which had a filling of breaded fish, avacado and cream cheese covered in a sweet chilly jam. The also have a menu of interesting twists in traditional Peruvian dishes.

When we first went we had a 5 piece limo roll to share as a starter which I followed with an excellent tuna main. The sushi was so good we returned for later in the week to try 4 different types of rolls (which cost about 18 pounds).

If you are in cusco and fancy stretching you budget a little I would look no further than Limo, it is definitely worth a visit.

The other restaurant we ate at was the inka grill. This is also on the main square (plaza de armas) but offers a more straight down the line menu of traditional Andean dishes. It may be (slightly) more expensive than most of the places on the square but the quality is also reliable.

Cusco really impressed with its excellent array of restaurants and bars (see my previous post about the pisco museum). I would highly recommend spending a few days in Cusco as part of any Machu Picchu trip as the city has lots to offer.

Pictures show Limo rolls and tuna steak also from limo. From Chi Cha the 4 fish starter, multiple meat stew and stuffed peppers. The final image is a view of Cusco.

Peruvian drinking

As I mentioned in my previous ode to Pisco we rather fell of the wagon going around Peru, against all of our better plans.

Once we let pisco into our lives we wondered what other alcohol and beverages in general the Peruvians had we didn't know about.

Beer was an obvious thing to try, all through Bolivia and Peru each city had its own local lager. The names of these were things like pasceña (La Paz, also slang for a girl from La Paz), cusqueña (cusco) and arequipeña (arequipa). As you can see the start of each name denotes the city and the end of the name is apparently a colloquial way of saying "from the city of".

I tried most of these beers and found pretty much all of them were more than acceptable lagers although my judgment may be clouded by too much drinking fosters and carling as a young adult (all the ones i mentioned were certainly vastly superior to both these abominations).

As well as brewing from barley the Peruvians have been making drinks from corn at least since inca times, and probably much before that.

Some of these drinks are called chicha, of which we found a couple of types, which are quite different.

The first was Chica Morada, this is made from the red maize and contains no alcohol (but quite a bit of sugar). It looks a lot like ribena and probably tastes a little like it (although how much of that is because I associated the colour with ribena is still a grey area). It has become a favourite with both me and fiancée when we don't want water.

Chica De jora is a different matter. This was apparently a drink used by the inca priests. It is a cloudy grey in colour and tastes a lot more like you imagine fermented maize to taste like. There can be a lot of alcohol present depending on the brew and at restaurants you're not really sure how much as it just comes in a glass (in some cases they brew it themselves). The version we tried was very filling, with what I imagine quite a bit of crushed maize floating in suspension in it. I certainly think that drinking it with a big meal (as I did) was a mistake.

The final drink which is a Peruvian curiosity is Inka kola. This is the only local drink which continued to outsell coke once it had been launched in a country, and judging by the locals it is still their drink of choice. As you'd expect from coca-cola coming second isn't something they do well and so they bought the recipe and naming rights to the inka version and now they make and distribute it.

After seeing it everywhere I finally decided to give it a go and can tell you that it is basically iron bru but without the neon orange colour, a far more urine like yellow (it still has the unmissable glow of tartrazine).

Peruvian drink, like Peruvian food, is full of diversity and surprises. Even the Peruvian wine that doesn't make it into pisco is actually quite drinkable (although the Peruvian restaurants mainly serve Chillean and Argentinian wines).