Anything but More Damned Potatoes

It was an early morning today, as we had to catch the 6am Trans del Norte bus from Toro Toro. This was made all the more challenging by the fact that it was still dark at this time and we didn't have an alarm clock to rouse us. Nevertheless, we managed to come to with enough time to gather our stuff and leave.

We chose to take the full-sized bus back to Cochabamba, rather than the micro, as it promised to leave at 6am (rather than when it is full), to offer more legroom, and to be cheaper than its micro counterpart. Being so early, and having had to wait so long for the micro to fill up on the outward journey, I was surprised to see a throng of people (exclusively Bolivian) waiting for the bus in the dark.

We set off with only a small delay, but travelled more slowly than the nimble micro, as the bus had to haul its massive bulk along the windy cobbled road out of Toro Toro. Being a bus, it also stopped frequently to make additional pickups in the villages, until there was standing room only, and slowed for the various animals in the road, including dogs, a donkey, a bull, a hen and her chicks, a pig, and some sheep painted bright pink.

At around 8am, the coach pulled up in a small village and all passengers disgorged to sit down and tuck into breakfast. The options were pollo, pollo, or pollo. However, a few ladies were wandering about the road selling  bags of prepackaged meals, one of which turned out to be vegetarian, much to my surprise. Upon investigation its contents was revealed to be two soft-boiled eggs in their shells, chuño (freeze-dried potatoes), normal potato, and pasta.

There are a lot of potatoes in Bolivia

It was another carb-heavy feast that is light on anything green, but a welcome one. Spiced up with an additional bag of chilli sauce, one 5bs meal was enough for us both, although the Bolivians were each getting outside of a similarly sized plate to themselves. The chuño were shrunken, dark-brown potatoes that have had moisture removed from them by a process of freezing in the high-altitude Andean air, followed by drying by the hot sun. This results in a wonderfully chewy, nutty texture, and an almost mushroom-like flavour.

The roads leading back into Cochabamba were clogged with Saturday traffic, so that we didn't arrive until nearly midday, despite the early start. Sunday was not a day of rest in the marketplace, which bustled with activity as we tried to navigate our way home.

The morning's journey and meal-in-a-bag had just made us more hungry, so we dropped our bags, turned around and went straight back out to a vegetarian restaurant on Las Heroínas.

Rica comida at Ricocomida

Ricomida (from the Spanish 'rica comida', meaning delicious food) is a Cochabamba group created to empower Bolivian women and to allow them to earn their own money by owning and operating restaurants. With a common decor of green, there are many such restaurants. The one in the centre of town is vegetarian and today served us a buffet lunch, including a tasty lentil hamburger, a choice of salad and a soup. The best thing: no potatoes!