More than just cheese bread...Foods of Colombia, Part Dos

Here I am to write about the second half of what we ate in Colombia. Yes, we ate so much there that we had to divide it into two posts.

We will start off with the highly authentic Colombia food of crepes, from the highly authentic Latin American chain restaurant, Crepes y Waffles.

Not much to say here except that crepes are delicious, and that this one, filled with "arequipe," the Colombian preferred term for what is known in other countries as dulce de leche or manjar, was no exception.

A slightly more authentic sweet treat: churros! The Bogota street version is skinny, unfilled, and round (well, oblong) and has a distinctive kind of syrupy taste. Very yummy. Note the utterly grease-soaked bag.

We could never figure out exactly what this fried thing was. We think it was layers of yucca and meat or something. Andy ate it.

The outdoor market area in the Caribbean beach town of Santa Marta had lots of food stands. The first thing we tried was this sausage, which came with some yucca slices. It was OK.

The market also yielded some fun fresh produce, such as these two taxo fruits. Well, they are called taxo in Ecuador, something else in Colombia that I don't remember. Anyhow, they are shaped like a banana on the outside...

...but are passionfruity on the inside!

I also found "personal-sized" papayas at the market, which made me very happy, because I love papaya, but can't eat a whole huge one myself. I enjoyed this Tara-sized papaya for breakfast the morning of our hike through Tayrona National Park.

Andy's slightly less-healthy breakfast choice: A pink, coconut-covered pastry from the local bakery.

Our guidebook specifically mentioned Alpina brand fruit yogurt of Colombia as being tasty and cheap. Turns out it was neither of these things--nearly $1 a cup and way oversweetened. Sad!

The "New Welcome" restaurant in Santa Marta provided one of my favorite meals out in a while. I got a huge steaming pot full of spaghetti in a mushroom-and-cream sauce for about $3...

...and for $1 more, a bucket of pineapple juice! Fresh and foamy with a hint of lime. Sadly, I had to share this bucket with Andy.

Street-vendor breakfast in Cartagena: A cheesy corn arepa and a cup of Avena, which is a cold, sweet milk-blended-with-oatmeal drink.

Our favorite spot in Cartagena was probably the shaded arches under which ladies sold homemade candy for 25 cents US apiece. Here is Andy enjoying our favorite specimen, a pineapple-coconut candy.

Fresh fruit salad! Andy still won't eat it because of his food poisoning episode, but I don't let that stop me from getting my vitamins A and C.

Andy prefers his fruit to be cooked, like this flattened, deep-fried banana. (And note the sweat stains on Andy's Icebreaker shirt, which absorbs moisture in a weird way.)

More Andy, more fried stuff. This one in Cartagena was pretty good, a crescent shape made of yucca with meat inside. Tastier than the flat yucca-and-meat thing from further south!

Another candy from the candy ladies. This one is a tamarind ball. What I liked about it was that it was coated with sugar both outside and inside.

In Cartagena, I was happy to be back in the land of cold coconut water sold on the street.

On our last day in Colombia, we made a couple of farewell purchases. Andy had to have this arequipe baby from the candy ladies...

...and at the airport, I spent our last few pesos at a branch of Qbano, the Cuban sandwich fast food chain, on this ropa vieja sandwich. I shared with Andy, and we weren't able to eat again for at LEAST half an hour.

That appears to be it for foods of Colombia. How did I end up writing the post with no cheese breads in it?!?! Don't ask. Cheese breads large and small, fried and unfried, will be the number one thing I remember about eating in Colombia, but clearly there was plenty of other tasty stuff to be had, too.