Healthy vegetarian recipes from Peru

In Latin America, it's often difficult to find healthy vegetarian options outside of the major cities. Generally, most meals are meat-based, and the veggies are usually of the deep-fried variety :)

That's why I really appreciated finding these vegetarian recipes while I was staying at Eco Kapievi, a wonderful yoga retreat in Puerto Maldonaldo, Peru (http://tambopataecotours.com/kapievi.html).

As I've been continuously on the road, I haven't had the chance to try these recipes myself, but let me know how they turn out if you do!

One the cabinas I stayed in Eco Kapievi, Puerto Maldonaldo

Yucas con coco 

(Yucca with coconut)

Yucca is not a well-used vegetable in North America, but eating it provides significant health benefits. Yucca a good source of vitamin C and fibre, and contains antioxidants. It is also thought to lower cholesterol and reduce inflammation (and is thus helpful for those suffering from rhematoid arthritis). 

1 1/2 kg of yucca
1 cup of coconut cubes
1 cup of coconut water
1 pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon of cumin powder
1 tablespoon of salt
1 teaspoon of thyme

Wash, peel and chop of the yucca into small pieces, removing the filament in the centre. Place in a pot with half the shaved coconut and a little bit of water to cook. In the meantime, blend the rest of the coconut with the other half of the coconut water. Add this to the pot with the salt, thyme, pepper and the ground cumin. When the liquid has been absorbed by the yuccas, the yuccas are finished cooking and are ready to serve.

Platanos en salsa de tomate
(Bananas in tomato sauce)

Did you know that bananas are related to the orchid and lily family? The health benefits of these fruits are simply astounding. Bananas are rich in carbohydrates, vitamins B6 and C, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Accordingly, they are thought to be good for the heart and for maintaining one's energy level. Here's a different way to eat bananas that's different for many Canadians - green, and prepared in a savory (not sweet) sauce.

10 green bananas, for frying
1/4 kg of green peas
200 grams of cheese (or soya cheese or other cheese substitute, if vegan)
1 1/2 kg of tomatoes
1 tablespoon of oregano
3 laurel leaves
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
Clarified butter or oil, for frying

Score each tomato with an "x", and place them in water to boil. When they are done boiling, place them in cold water, and peel, remove and discard the skins. Chop the peeled tomatoes finely and put them to cook in the pot with the peas.

You can choose to prepare the bananas in one of two ways. The first is to deep fry them (like french fries) in the oil or clarified butter until they are golden. The second is to coat them with thin layer of oil or butter and bake them in the oven, turning the pieces from time to time until they turn golden. Add the salt, oregano, the pepper, the laurel leaves and the cheese to the tomato salsa, and mix well. When the peas have cooked, put them in with the bananas and cook it all together for a few more minutes, then serve.

Papas con salsa de coco y yogurt
(Potatoes with coconut sauce and yogurt)

Potatoes get a bad rap as the "devil's food", since they are high in carbohydrates and are thus thought to make you fat if you eat them. In reality, eating foods high in complex carbs can help you lose weight, as their sugars break down more slowly in your body, thus staving off hunger pangs for longer.  Potatoes are also very high in vitamins and fibre - a single potato will provide almost 50 percent of the Vitamin C, 21 percent of B 12, and 12 percent of the fibre it is recommended you consume daily.

Peel, boil and slice the potatoes into cubes, and boil until soft. Place them in a container and refrigerate. Mix in the yogurt, the salt and the grated coconut. Heat the clarified butter in a small pot, and roast mustard seeds until they begin to pop. Later add the pepper, ginger and aji and stir a few seconds more. Pour the mixture into the container with the potatoes and yogurt and mix well. Serve cold as a salad, and garnish with parsley and tomato slices before serving.

Valle de Cocora, Salento

If you are ever in Colombia, don’t pass up the opportunity to visit Salento, a quaint village surrounded by bucolic rolling hills. Aside from its colonial charm, mild weather and spectacular views, Salento is a 30-minute jeep ride from the incredible Valle de Cocora, which makes for a wonderful trekking experience. Cocora almost looks and feels like the Alps, but is distinguished by the presence of the uniquely tropical tall and slender wax palm (palma de cera), the national tree of Colombia.

One of Salento's colonial buildings in the evening.

Wax palms on the way to Acaime.

I did an excellent, if slightly grueling (mostly because the Beer Olympics does not provide adequate physical training for anything, well, physical) hike in Cocora which I highly recommend. In order to get to the park, you’ll need to make your way to the town square and hop on one of the many jeeps waiting to take you to the entrance. The cost is $3,000 pesos - just under two dollars - and the jeep leaves when it’s “full”, i.e. when there are two passengers in the front, six in the back, and two hanging off the back. We took the 7:30 a.m. jeep so we could take advantage of the views, as the afternoons in Salento tend to cloud over a bit.

Our jeep convey.
Note the regard for passenger safety :)

We started off by hiking up to the Reserva Natural Acaime. Along the way, we had a to let a cowboy with his milk horses pass and cross a few sketchy Indiana Jones-style suspension bridges, which wobbled in a terrifying fashion when you crossed them.

At the start...and I'm already behind the rest of them!

Making way for the milk horses...

Taking our lives in hand...

When we reached top, we were met by a lovely paisa couple gave us coffee and/or hot chocolate (included in the admission price of $3,000 pesos), which helped stave off the exhaustion from the ascent, and warded off the chill brought on by the fact that we were 2600 meters from sea level! The couple keeps approximately 80 different hummingbirds on site (“mas o menos“, said the elderly man who runs the place with a chuckle, “they move too fast to count!”), which whiz around from feeder to feeder. We were also visited by a chicken and a rooster, and got to meet their horse, lol.

The reserve, with the hummingbird feeders..

Hot coffee!

'Sup dude?

After fortifying ourselves with the coffees and some brought-along snacks, we headed along another path towards La Montaña. While I was told we would have spectacular views from there, no one mentioned to me that it required a 1 km ascent straight up a mountain: although in fairness, had I been paying a bit more attention to the name of the trail, I may have figured it out earlier! My very young trekking companions nimbly shot up the hill like goats, while I huffed my way up behind them. The labour was worth it, though, because we were rewarded with some of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen.

We eventually returned to the entrance of the park, around 1:00 p.m., where a number of jeeps were waiting. Unfortunately, we’d missed the 12:30 p.m. jeep, and the next one wasn't scheduled to leave until 2 p.m. The driver did agree to leave early, however, if we had eight passengers at $3,000 pesos a head, or if we paid him $20,000 pesos for our five: some strange math, if you ask me! We managed to round up a Colombian couple and convince the driver to let us pay $3,000 pesos for the missing eighth person. We drew “straws” (they were actually small sticks picked up from beside the road) to decide who would pay the extra fare. After much laughter and joking, the Colombian guy drew the short stick and had to cough up the additional $1.75 to the driver. A great end to a great day!

Some things I love about Colombia...

Over the last three weeks that I've been in Colombia, I've had some of my most incredible travel experiences to date, and that's saying a lot! There is much more to this country than the stereotypes would have you believe - as the Colombian tourist board says, "the only danger is wanting to stay", a peril I've been experiencing since I first set eyes on Cartgena's elegant, ivory silouette from our approaching sailboat. Indeed, I've been here for almost a month, completely unable to tear myself away to move southward as planned!

Here are a few of the many things I love about Colombia, and why I find it so hard to move on:

1. THE PEOPLE! The number one reason my Colombian experience has been so great, for sure. On average, I'd say that the Colombians I've met have been the most fun, friendly, and generous people I've encountered on my travels. I've never been to a country whose citizens love to dance and party as much as the Colombians do, and who do it so damn WELL! It's no wonder that Colombia was voted "third happiest country in the world" by Business Week in 2008 - and from what I've seen, it's probably moved up a spot or two on the list since then.



Birthday Salsa-Dancing at Havanas in Cartagena...
He even gave me a shaker with picture of
the Buena Vista Social Club on it as a birthday present!
Awwww!!!!

The only thing better than Birthday Salsa-Dancing is....
BIRTHDAY SUSHI! (...and happy-hour vodka sodas...*nothing*)

2. The natural environment of the country. For one thing, Colombia is the only South American country to border both the Pacific and Caribbean oceans. While I haven't been to Pacific side (yet...ahem...yes, friends and family, I really am moving on to Equador, I swear it...), I can certainly vouch for the beauty of the Caribbean coast. The Old City of Cartagena, the most-filmed place in Colombia, is an obvious must-see for the majority of tourists, some of whom are drawn in by its more unfortunate attractions (Fun Fact: Apparently, the "Hooker" Hotel Caribe is now a bigger tourist attraction for many Americans than the Old City itself). The natural beauty of the beaches of Santa Marta, Taganga and Parque Tayrona to the west cannot be put into words - these places are true tropical paradises.

Beautiful Cartagena

The town of Taganga, a sacred site of the Tayrona people...
now a major party hub for Israelis who've finished
up their military service. Good times.

Lovely Cabo San Juan in Parque Tayrona.

I'm currently in Medellin, which has a completely different climate altogether, owing to its privileged position in the Colombian Andes. The City of Eternal Spring, as it's sometimes called, is nestled in a verdant valley. The air is clean and fresh, scented by mountain brooks and pine needles. It's a pleasant change from the heavy, humid climate of the Caribbean.

Medellin is a city of contrasts: thousands of brick-colored favelas dot the rich green mountainside, and tin-roof shanties are visible from the balconies of wildly ostentatious shopping malls. Rich or poor, however, the entire city lets its hair down on weekends - Medellin is famous for its nightlife. Indeed, the Ruta de Shots in Parque Llergas almost killed me on Friday. In case you were wondering, mixing Aguardiente with tequila, setting it on fire, and drinking it out a shot glass while someone bangs you over the head with a stuffed, oversized mallet is a bad idea. Doing it six more times or so is an even worse one. Just saying.

3. Perros calientes. No, this is not just a hilarious transliteration of "hot dogs", which in my book would make it worth mentioning in its own right. These are hot dogs to put all hot dogs to shame, sold-street side and outside all fine drinking establishments in Colombia. Ever wondered what you would get if you crumbled potato chips over a chorizo in a bun, and smothered it with mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, and pineapple sauce? Well, now you know. You're welcome.

Photo of a perro caliente, loaded with delicious nonsense.

4. Chivas. The ones I've seen have been either converted schoolbuses or open-air wooden buses. The awesome factor comes from the fact that they're usually personalized with folksy designs in colorful paint (and/or massive, airbrushed images of nude women elbowing up to sparkly exortations of "Jesus Es Mi Amigo", gigantic laser sticker portraits of the drivers' children, "Monster Drink" decals, etc...you get the idea). They can serve as a form of public transportation, or, alternatively, a moving bar within which you can drink Aguardiente to the point of blindness, then break your neck on the optional stripper pole while practicing your reverse fireman. Your choice, really.

No nudity on this one. Sorry guys.

5. The fruit. Wow, the fruit! They have fruits I've never seen or heard of before - several kinds of mangos and papayas, not to mention my new discoveries of lulo, guanabana, and granadilla. Eaten alone, or juiced singly or in combination, they are divine. I especially love the sliced green mangos sprinkled in salt, served in plastic cups from wooden carts on the street. Fabulous.



Lovely little mangos azucars. I love you guys.

6. Aguardiente. Ok, I'm not sure if I love or hate this one. It's the vaguely anise-flavored, local firewater with a 27% alcohol content, ubiquitous in all nightclubs and plazas in Colombia where drinking is done. I've even heard songs sung about it! (although to be fair, the only words I understood were "aguardiente" and "borracha", so...) There is a sugar-free version that claims to offer a less severe hangover - marketing genius, indeed, as the hangover from aguardiente makes dying of a severe bout of dysentery seem preferable.

"Dun-dun-dun-duuuuuunnnnnn"

What Aguardiente? Not us...

Whenever I've gone travelling in the past, I've made haphazard attempts keeping a travel journal. Inevitability, however, I ended up sacrificing journal-writing for more interesting activities like zip-lining, beer-drinking and napping. But this time, I'm really going to try to keep it up - because this trip isn't just any old vacation. I've left my job, my boyfriend and my apartment (and all its contents, now neatly stowed in voluminous boxes under my dad's stairs) back in Toronto and took a one-way flight to Costa Rica, with the intention of making my way through Latin America until I'm ready to stop. I have no real itinerary, but I'm operating on intuition only, intending to do whatever I feel allows me to reach deeper aspects of myself, and have a bit of fun in the process!

I'm hoping that through writing about my experiences, I'll figure out what I'm looking for. Who knows, maybe I'll even find it! 

 

I truly hope you enjoy reading my blog, and appreciate your feedback :)

xo Tara