a word or two on the delightful gastronomic delights thus far...

desserts dryer than the Guajira desert

Tim is renowned for the adage 'most things are better with cheese'. Colombia is really putting the gimmick kid to the test on this one. cheesy hot chocolate is just the tip of a milky iceberg... colombians like to grate cheese onto the top of elaborate and luminescent ice cream sundaes, cheese melts merrily on a tortilla with dulce de leche, glistens temptingly atop a bowl of jelly, and has even made appearances in milkshakes and fruit salads. the cheese itself, white, rubbery and always identical, has a pungent farmyard aroma, and seemingly very little taste until the powerful putrid cow flavour comes through. it works wonderfully with chocolate.

we are currently in a small white colonial town called Popayan, a simple 45 minute flight from Bogota in a jet propelled light aircraft, once you've made it through an epic 24 hour stint in the airport of course. a series of cancelled and delayed flights did at least allow us ample opportunity to sample the airport's culinary offerings; rum & raisin milkshakes for breakfast, cardboardy vegetarian empanadas* containing a dry grey paste, and what was, almost certainly, meat, short strong cups of black coffee, tropical cherry flavour tic tacs***, more coffee, dunkin' doughnuts 'cheese sandwhiches'*** and water that tastes alarmingly strongly of plastic**.

thankfully Popayan is described in the Lonely Planet guide as 'famous for it's food' - these last three words, circled emphatically in our edition on an enthusiastic pre-trip read. we've feasted on giant platters of grilled meats accompanied by banana, and the ubiquitous, but not ubiquitous tasting onion-tomato-chili-coriander salsa.

we've been treated to an evening of typical christmas eve snacks: balls of sugar coated peanuts, hollowed half coconut shells of semi-solid sugary ariquipe, sugar soaked fruits that look, and taste, peculiarly like gherkins, tooth achingly sweet 'pudding' which no one could give a name to, sugared grated coconut balls, sugar coated biscuits and cheese, with olives.

on the whole, we have in fact eaten incredibly well, but under Tim's expectant proof-reading gaze, i feel compelled to up the 'entertainment' value of my post, so i'll elaborate on a few more of the less appealing snacks. tim and i may actually disagree, given that a selection of his CHOICE of breakfasts are featured below.

the least appetising thing we've been offered for breakfast (outside of an aircraft) is milky egg soup. i opted for a tamal instead, a giant steamed mass of banana leaves containing, amongst other things, half a chicken leg, gelatinous pork cubes, and a lot of ground corn.

one thing we certainly agree on is that flamboyantly camp cocktails are the order of most days. even better if you can physically resemble your drink.

buen probecho

meat me in Popayan

breakfast # 1: salchipapa ****

breakfast # 2: desayuno de carne


piña colada in Colombia's Blackpool


cocoloco with Tim

tamal

key to key ingredients

* not recommended
** cannot be recommended, but most probably safer than the tap
*** profoundly unrecommendable
**** miraculous if you live to be able to recommend or otherwise
breakfast #1: as featured, served with strawbery malt milkshake
breakfast # 2: meat of unconfirmed origin, sauce, equally unidentifiable, other than the entirely recognisable onion contingent. served with arepa of ground corn, orange juice and hot chocolate, of course.