Food glorious food

Ecuador has heaps and heaps of different fruits! We have a different fruit juice every morning for breakfast, it´s really cool. In the shops, it´s common to have pineapple, passionfruit, raspberry/blackberry, banana (they have 3 different names for bananas- platan, banana and verde platano) and papaya. I think that´s all the common ones that all the shops have.

I took photos of some fruits that we have. I don´t know what the yellow one is, but the small red ones are called tomate de arbol (literally translated as tomato from the tree). It´s really nice, and apparently has medicinal properties. It doesn´t taste like conventional tomato juice, it´s only got a little bit of a tomato taste, I quite like it. I´ll take more photos of Ecuadorian fruits as I come across them. Apparently, a lot of these fruits only grow in Ecuador, which is pretty cool!

This is the backyard of the house I live in. The tree on the right hand side (just under the yellow plastic bag) is the tree that the tomate de arbol grows on.

Today, I went into downtown Quito to the colonial district, so named due to the architecture of the buildings. Anyway, I shall relate that story later, the point I wanted to make here was that I went to Govindas for lunch! Yes, Quito has Hare Krishnas! It was pretty good, and only cost $1.50! The lunch consisted of popcorn and soup for entree (I´m not sure what, but was just glad it was vego. Ecuadorians always have soup for lunch and dinner), rice with black beans, pickled radish, lettuce & celery, a potato (yes, just one), some curried and salted vegies (tastes a bit like chinese salted mustard (the vegie, not the sauce) and a piece of soy meat. The meal also came with juice (not sure what either. It wasn´t the best, but was drinkable) and some sweet rice pudding. I liked it!