Hey guys.  I feel like I owe you a blog.  I’m not really in the writing mood but I’m certainly hungry.  So here we go.

I like food and to date I’ve been traveling for over 8 months.  So here are some iPod/iPhone photos of some of the things I’ve eaten since leaving home.

This is Abdullah–my friend from Oman.  We went to Penn State together.  Abdullah met me in Dubai. He dresses pretty sharp.  This is us eating some meat and some rice.  You gotta eat it with your hands, and dip it in the yoghurts, because that’s what you do in the UAE/Oman.  It was really good.

This is Juaja ice cream from Argentina.  My flavors are probably cinnamon and dulce de leche.  This is some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had.  Oooooooh man.

Mamuschka chocolates from Bariloche, Argentina.  The store was like this Russian doll tinker fairy wonderland.  It was not creepy.  The chocolate is really good.

This is a milanesa I got, also in Bariloche.  This cost like $5.  I was eating with my friend Pete, the Swiss guy with whom I hitchhiked from Bariloche to Buenos Aires.  We had just met a few hours prior via CouchSurfing.

This is a steak, in Bariloche.  I ate with a kid named Francisco–an American.  Francisco and I met in the woods, and spent a few days hiking and drinking matté under the stars until 4 in the morning.  I like the steak in Argentina.

So yea.  Pete and I hitchhiked to Buenos Aires.  This is when we had our tents set up and ready for bed, and strolled in to ask this nice country couple if we could hitch with them the next day.  We were carrying our toothbrushes.  They said yes, and invited us for a steak dinner as well.  It was like 11:30pm.  Dinner had just started.

We got to Bahia Blanca, and I ate my first choripan.  The start of an era.  

My first week in Buenos Aires, I stayed with Daniel.  He’s a friend of Sam Helfaer.  Daniel is one of the smartest persons I know.  He messaged me one morning (via Facebook Chat, from the other room), “what do you say we go and get the best milanesa in the city this morning?”  I said yes.  That’s the milanesa, with ham and cheese on top.  Really good.  

 Chicken and rice in Buenos Aires.  I like eating by myself.

I met this girl Ali in Bariloche, and then we met up again in Buenos Aires.  She was really cool, and I might have had a small crush on her.  She’s a vegetarian I think, or was trying to get me to be one, or something.  So I said I’ll try one day just to eat vegetables.  Pictured above is something I had been trying to make for a few weeks, but couldn’t find the garbanzos.  Anyway, that’s avocado and garbanzo and lime juice.  It was pretty good, but predictably not filling.  So..

Later that night, I got more choripan.  I was CouchSurfing with Martin, the surgeon.  He was off being a doctor, and I was eating choripans in his apartment and watching the Kings vs. Coyotes play overtime in Game 4 (I think).  And then the internet cut out, and I sat there screaming “CHE BOLUDO” all by myself.

Bondiola sandwich on the coastanera in Buenos Aires.  Arguably better than a cheesesteak.  The scene is a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives paradise.  My dad would strongly approve.  

Parillada, for my last night in Buenos Aires.  That’s a lot of meat, and that’s Simon staring at it.

A hot dog with avocado slop and mayo.  In Santiago.  It was not good, and everyone I met in the 6 hours I was there was just mean.  WTF.

Llama steak in Uyuni, Bolivia.

A friend named Janai and myself were asked to help out a class of middle schoolers with English.  This was in Sucre, Bolivia.  So they took us out to dinner, and that’s what they fed us.  Salchipapa.  Salchipapa is fries with sausage and tomatoes and sometimes mayo.  There’s also some juice made from some fruit that you can’t really get in Philadelphia.  I don’t think.

A fruit called Tumbo, and Phillip’s knife.  I was forced to leave the knife in the Lima airport when I left it in my daypack.  Can’t carry those on the plane!

Hash browns in Sucre, Bolivia.  I made them.  Janai gave me the idea.

Alpaca fajitas in Arequipa, Peru.  I made them too.

I had just hiked back from Machu Picchu.  I sat down for soup and a steak.  Those are females without much clothing.  And my soup.

I had some leftover sausage from my Machu camping trip, so I went to the San Blas market and bought veggies and eggs, and made this. 

Strawberry smoothie, San Blas market.

Steak, salad, egg and rice breakfast.  The lady that made it spoke 4 languages.  Like weird different ones.  I think one came from the Philippines.

Street food with my friend Pea in Lima, Peru.  That’s like chicken hearts and livers I think.  In a spicy green sauce.

 

Chaufa in Lima.  It’s like chicken-fried-rice.

Pre-Huayhuash lunch with Santos.  Ceviche, baby.

Marco from Lima Backpacker’s was probably the best host I’d ever had.  He made us these most nights.  Maracuya sours.  Really good and there’s a raw egg in there.

Typical lunch, WWOOFing in Bucaramanga.  One of the best parts of the day for sure!

 

Leftovers from the food court.  This is probably the least interesting picture in this list.

 

We were in one of the favelas in Rio, and there was a bakery.  I got like a lemon mousse, and it rocked the house.

 

CouchSurfing with Mariana in Sao Paolo.  Fish, veggies, beans, spices.  Typical food from Bahia.

 

Churassco in Florianopolis, Brazil.  I ate this far too often.

My first alfajore–Puerto Iguacu, Argentina.

Ice cream in Ushuaia–the end of the world.  Too good.  For real.

Dinner with friends in Punta Arenas, Chile.  Some meat burger sandwich thing, and then a beer with a raw egg in it.  It was worth trying but won’t be ordered again.

 

Backpacking.  What it’s all about.  El Chaltén, Argentina.

More dulce de leche ice cream.  Argentina, of course.

I don’t imagine the overt enthusiasm pumping this post was the thing that kept your interest piqued.  But hey, that food does look pretty good.

Still in Colombia.  We’re going to some small restaurant tonight where the owner basically tells us what he has and then makes whatever we ask for, because it’s Pete and Ashleys’ (two of the volunteers) last night.  Sad because they are good people.  We’ll be eating Middle Eastern food.

To the moon,

Will