Street Meat & Ants..

The first few pieces of delictable street meet have been consumed!  In San Gil, Colombia (a mini Queenstown, New Zealand for fellow adrenaline junkines), we found 2 foods blog worthy.  The first is the local delicacy, ants.  They are not your typical, microscopic ants.  The ants are about the size of a soybean (pod and all) and have huge wings.  To cook, they take off the wings and throw them on the grill.  The ants then blacken up and get nice and crispy.  You get a pretty sizable bottle for about 20,000 Pesos (10 US Dollars) -- which is actually quite expensive for food down here.  The taste is unique, to say the least.  Chomping down is good as they are really crispy and have a nice crunch to them.  The flavor is that of burnt popcorn kernels. The down side is, like popcorn, the legs and various body parts get wedged in your teeth and you are left with a decidely ant-y aftertaste.  The experience is much improved with a cold cerveza. 

The ants! Each pod is half an ant, either the head or butt.

Street meat.  You can find it anywhere in the world and everyone has their own take on it.  In San Francisco, it is bacon wrapped hot dogs in the Mission.  In San Gil, Colombia, it is skewers of beef  (i think) with a potato on top!  While the meat is good, the real experience is in the atmosphere surrounding the meat.  One lady, with a 8 inch by 8 inch charcol grill, pumps out a minimum of 300 skeweres of meat a night, along with countless pieces of grilled corn and skewered chorizo.  Fan in one hand (to keep the coals red hot), constantly flipping meat in the other, she is the master of the grill.  She operates in the town square where, every night, the town of San Gil gathers and has a beer or eleven in the beautiful, 75 degree nights.  The only place to get a bite to eat for the revelers is the street meat queen and her 8x8 grill.  While the meat was good, the experience of jostling with the locals for your piece-o-meat is unforgetable.  I wasn´t able to snap a picture last night but if I see anyone who has one I will update it here! 

(Apologies for typos, operating with a far different keyboard and no spellcheck!)

Soup, Meat and Ostriches

I know we said we would like to write about street food but unfortunately we haven´t eaten much of it thus far. So I´ll talk a little about the Colombian food we have had.

Our first night in Bogota we had an authentic Colombian meal. Not realizing how large they are, Matt ordered two tamales. A tamal in Colombia is mushed chickpeas with chicken and potatoes wrapped in a banana leaf. I had the ajiaco, a soup with chicken, three kinds of potatoes (though I couldn´t tell the difference), a stick of corn on the cob in a broth that tasted and looked a lot like egg yolk with a touch of cream on top. The meal was rather bland and although the corn look plump and delicious it was disappointing. We will continue to try more authentic Colombian food but maybe stay away from the ajiaco.

On day 5 in Villa de Leyva we decided to cook our own meal for a change. We met an Austrian guy named Robert who joined in on our plan. So we set out to find some meat and potatoes. The potatoes were easy to find but the meat was more of a quest. Upon entering the first Carniceria, we came across 3 shelves of stinking, discolored meat. When we asked for carne he brought out kidneys that were sitting directly above the tripe. We decided to pass but as we were leaving he said Mañana (tomorrow) letting us know that meat delivery is on Tuesdays. We had 2 more similar experiences before asking a restaurant to give us meat to which he laughed in our faces while shaking his head no. We finally found a shop that we had missed in our 2 hour quest. She showed us a huge cut of meat. There we asked for 1 inch slices and though she looked at us strangly, she did what we asked.

Back at the hostel we cooked the potatoes in the fire and seasoned them with salt and jalepeños. The meat we threw on the grill without seasoning heeding Robert´s advice (He grew up on a farm). Robert and I were the first to bite into our steaks. Mine was much thinner than Robert´s but neither of us could cut, let alone bite through the meat. I instantly gave up and after a few tries the guys did too. There was a pregnant dog hanging out so we fed her one of the tough steaks. At least she seemed to really enjoy it.

The following day we headed out to the ostrich farm. Some facts about ostriches that you may not know:

• 1 ostrich egg is equivalent to 24 chicken eggs
  


• They are generally over 6 ft tall
  


• They can run 60 km per hour for up to 15 minutes



• They will peck at shiny things esp. jewelry



• and they are quite aggressive

There were many other animals on the farm including llamas, water buffalo, ponies and goats. Feeding the ostriches was slightly intimidating given their size, speed and agressive nature. They pecked out at our hands quite forcefully, knocking most of the pellets to the ground and walked right up to your face if they knew you had food.

The ostriches then returned the favor, feeding us at the farm restaurant. We savored delicious ostrich hamburgers with fries. Interestingly ostrich meat is red but lean and lacks much flavor. It was a satisfying day at the ostrich farm.

We are now in San Gil the Colombian capital of adventure sports and fried ants.

And here are some additional pictures...

Arrival

Arriving two hours before our scheduled departure allowed us to have one last snack in SF. Fittingly, we stopped at the Anchor Steam restaurant in SFO. While the chicken ceasar salad was fine, we truly savored our last SF-brewed beer. Our flight and 1 night stay in Miam were uneventful though I apparently am a priority member at the Holiday Inn Express which resulted in gifts of waters bottles, packaged cookies and Holiday Inn stationary set for the each of us. They really know how to treat their guests!
After approximately 4 hours of sleep we were ready to reach our final destination-Bogota! While eating my grilled cheese and ham sandwich (Matt had the scrambled eggs) on the plane I finally set to work on my list of places to see and things to do in Colombia. At the top of my list are:

• El museo de oro (Gold Museum) in Bogota
• El Donacion Botero-Displaying many works of the great artist
• Villa de Leyva and surrounding areas including an ostrich farm
• Tayrona National Park-a fabulous tropical park on the coast
• Cartagena-one of the biggest port towns
• Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City)
• Zona Cafetera-where they grow the coffee
• Termales de Santa Rosa (hot springs)
• Isla Gorgona and...
• Popayan

Food and Drinks we must try:

• Cuy (guinea pig)
• Hormiga Culona (large fried ants) thats right, fried ants
• Chocolate Santafereño-cup of hot chocolate accompanied by a piece of cheese and bread (traditionally you put the cheese into the chocolate) and...
• Obviously, Colombian coffee

We arrived at Alegria´s hostel in la Candelaria district with no problem. Interestingly, in the cab ride we heard "San Francisco (be sure to wear flowers in your hair)" by the Mamas & the Papas. What a strange way to start our trip, right?

The Goodbye Dinner

Though it is not street food, the good bye dinner tonight definitely warrants a quick write up.  Growing up with one of the worlds foremost chefs as your mother, there is no doubt in my mind where my love of food came from.  I admittedly took it for granted growing up (bartering my lunches to the highest bidder throughout high school), and true appreciation of her cooking didn't really set until I went away for college.  Mom's food > dorm food. 

The mac and cheese and chard!

It quickly became an unspoken family tradition that whenever we had a family gathering (birthday, home for the weekend, visitor in town, whatever) the guest of honor gets to choose their meal.  Tonight Elisabeth and I choose old fashioned, all-American comfort food.  Ribs. Mac and cheese. Chard.  Most importantly, vino.  Couldn't ask for a better meal!

Dry rubbed ribs

Additionally, everyone at the meal gave us their best travel tip. Here they are!

• Always go off the beaten path (Jonah/Lauren)
• Never say no / always say YES (Mika and Emmy)
• Always wear a fanny pack (Char)
• Learn public transit (Chico)
• Write down the name of your hostel/hotel in the local vernacular (Becky)
• Give yourself a day a week to rest (Rob)

Bon Voyage!

Here we are, 5 days until we take off!  Elisabeth (hereafter "ebug") and I thought it would be good to have a travel blog with a theme.  After many debates about various themes with my grandmother (topics ranging from breakfast cuisine to pets to modes of transportation) we finally settled on street food.  This isn't going to be a hard and fast rule, as we will undoubtedly blog about many other subjects, but hopefully will serve as somewhat of the unifying theme.

High level trip details:

Depart --  August 18th for Bogota Colombia.
Return -- unknown
Major destinations -- Machu Picchu November 1st-5th with Jason Norris and Thomas Minter (and others??), Galapagos (October time frame), Patagonia (November? December?), Iguazu Falls (??), and many others

What we had to do to get to the point of leaving for the trip...

• Vacate apartments
• Quit jobs
• Sell my car
• Box up personal belongings (and convince parents to store for us!!)
• Book plane tickets
• Shots (Typhoid, Hep A, Yellow Fever, Tetanus) and Malaria pills.
• Health/Dental insurance
• Start a blog!!!