Sweet as Sucre

Here's something weird. When we were in Argentina we met a girl who seemed convinced that it was virtually impossible to get by as a vegetarian in Bolivia. ¨Well, people in Bolivia surely need to eat vegetables OCCASIONALLY, you might think¨ I suggested, ¨so perhaps I can occasionally buy a salad from a restaurant, or perhaps I can buy a vegetable in the markets once a week, or something along those lines, so as to maintain basic nutrition.¨ She maintained the satisfied disposition of someone deeply knowledgeable who is forced to consort with ignorant morons. ¨No, I don't think so,¨ she said.

I find it interesting that none the people who have said such things about Bolivia/Argentina/South America in general - there have been a few - have been vegetarians (although some have been ¨basically vegetarian¨ and have been ¨forced to eat meat¨ on occasion).

As it happens I think I have probably eaten better in Bolivia than anywhere else on the entire trip so far. The reason? Everything is so flippin' cheap that I can dine out every night if I want to. (I don't, interestingly enough, even though going to the supermarket is just as expensive. Even dining out grows a bit tiring after a while.) I have eaten some truly excellent meals here, and all for less than $10, which usually includes a drink and often a dessert. As to vegetarian options - well, the salads are actually substantial here and usually contain generous amounts of tasty things like baby corn, cheese and olives that are inevitably skimped upon in Australia. The tortillas - ahh, the tortillas. Tortillas in South America are usually of the Spanish variety rather than the Mexican one unless otherwise specified, i.e. a delicious eggy omelette/quiche/pie. They are wonderful with seasonal vegetables, or provolone and champignons, or papas fritas (believe me when I say that an omelette-with-french-fries may just about be the greatest thing you can ever have with your coffee on a Sunday morning, except maybe panqueques con dulce de leche, but really that's a better dessert.)

And let us not forget that Bolivia is the land of QUINOA! Boooyyy do I love quinoa. It is a wonderful grain containing ALL the essential amino acids that I love to cook with in Australia, only it costs $7 for a little box. Here, every menu is liberally riddled with quinoa soup, quinoa casserole, quinoa pie... The quinoa pie at the Bibliocafé is probably the best thing I've eaten since I've been here. With broccoli(!) and other vegetables and really tasty cheese (the cheese in Argentina and Chile is largely so flavourless and rubbery that I can hardly bother to eat it, which is saying something when it comes to me and cheese), it is truly a magical little terracotta pot of joy.

Another thing I'm crazy about is JUGO NATURALES. ¨JUGO¨ is pronounced sort of like how an American or stupid person might pronounce ¨HUGO¨ which I find very pleasing. I'm entirely smitten with JUGO DE FRUTILLA which is none other than STRAWBERRY JUICE! What a concotion! The marvellous thing is that, while one might pay about $6 for such a delightful beverage in Australia, here it is more like 6 Bolivianos. Which is about a dollar! BARGAIN.

Finally I would like to announce that I am a woman at last. The reason for this? I like olives! Congratulations are in order, I think. When I came to South America I had a lucky feeling that if I just gave it a go, maybe I would learn to enjoy this most mature of foodstuffs in time. But I had no idea it would happen so quickly! The last olive I ate in Australia was tolerable, I guess, but only just. It came from a woman sitting next to me at the Leonard Cohen concert who insisted I would like it, that it didn't taste like any other olive on earth. She was talking out of her pooter, it tasted exactly like an olive, but it was nice of her to share her food with me I guess so I shouldn't complain. Then a guy in Bariloche let me try one of his black olives and I kind of liked it. THEN in Mendoza I tried a green olive when I went on the wine tour with Rosie and Anna and BAM! Olive fever! That very night I bought a packet of them from the supermarket and I knew I was an adult. Olives here are super cheap and they are so good, with thick thick smoky skin that tastes of wine and incense. And they come with everything! On every menu! Like little green slivers of magic.

Soooo today I went up to the Sucre mirador with Ro, which is something we've been planning to do for some time but never getting around to, and it was beautiful! A fine view of the old town, but a bit of a hike was involved so we went to the Mirador Café to relax and read a little and I ordered a vegetable tortilla and jugo de frutilla and I enjoyed it so much that I kept thinking ¨I should really write a blog post about how much I enjoy the food here,¨

and then you will never guess what we did on the way home. WE WENT TO A CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL! It was pretty great. I tried a really odd frambuesa creme thingy ('frambuesa' means 'raspberry' in Spanish, and it's a good thing that jugo de frambuesa isn't widely available or I'd probably never return to Australia). Then Ro and I each tried a shot of sweet liqueurs - Ro tried the chocolate blanco and I the ¨leche de tigre,¨ which means ¨tiger milk.¨ ¨No es legal,¨ I admonished the boy at the counter sternly, but he informed me that it was not the milk of real tigers. The best thing about the liqueurs was that the shot glasses themselves were made of chocolate. GENIUS. And theeennn I tried a doughnut sort of thing. It was pretty average to be honest. But still... great?

The other good news is that we finally managed to go to a decent book exchange so I got rid of Jude the Obscure (pretty great but MISERABLE, sheesh, what an indictment on marriage) and Heart of Darkness (blergh) and got Islands in the Stream and freakin' War and Peace instead.

Anyway the point of this post, apart from the last couple of paragraphs I guess, is to tell all those people who don't know jack about vegetarianism to shut the hell up with their fear-mongering ignorant opinions and concentrate on boring other travellers with the superiority of their overpriced North Face backpack instead of pissing me off.

Love love love
CJ Lion

P.S. The internet café is playing ABBA songs in Spanish! It sounds exactly like ABBA though? I'm so confused!