Arepas

La Piedra del Peñol

Guatapé

Hi. It´s been a little while. I started with a lot to catch up on and now I have even more…But last night´s gastronomic experience warrants an immediate recounting because I am still reeling, well, my arteries are. Here is the tale of our day.

So Mironda, my awesome new friend from Alabama/Michigan/Chicago, and I arrived Friday in Guatatpé, a gorgeous small town about an hour and a half outside of Medellín.  This town is set in the midst of a sea of lakes, all man-made when a damn was built and essentially flooded a hilly valley.  The crown jewel of this region is an anomaly of a rock, La Piedra del Peñol, an enormous, dome-shaped rock that rises majestically (and nakedly) up from a hill to survey all the land of its kingdom.  It´s quite singularly the best vantage point around; nothing can compete for the view from the top of La Piedra (the rock).  

We opted to reach the top if La Piedra via a 16 kilometer hike around some of the most beautiful countryside I have seen so far.  Colombia is stunning in many ways I never expected.  Here in Guatapé was no different.  The grass is so vibrantly green and the homes and their small gardens or manicured properties sloping down hillsides are charming. Not to mention people are relaxed and friendly, a very welcome relief for me after almost a month spent in the two largest cities of Colombia, Bogotá and Medellin.  The hike was so pleasant that Mironda and I kept interrupting each other so exclaim how happy we were to be doing this.  I was really savoring having a travel companion for a couple days.  I am feeling the middle-of-my-trip-weariness setting in and to talk freely in English and share my thoughts with a peer was a treat.

And so we arrived quite quickly at La Piedra, time flew chattily by.  We climbed the million or so zig-zagging stairs, set into a giant crevice of the rock like an eccentrically sewn up scar.  The view was, of course, spectacular. 

Fast forward to night time.  The town was day 4 or so into the La Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmne, which means basically that every vehicle in the region comes out to honk its horn and stop up the streets with joy and ruckus, terminating in the town square, where various puestos (stalls) of street food are set up and prepared for a long night of flipping arepas.

Arepas, what are they?  I luckily discovered these delectable corn patties before I left San Francisco at a colorful restaurant on 14^th and Valencia called Pica Pica.  Pica Pica serves Venezuelan-style arepas however, so what I found here in Colombia was different and just as delicious.  Arepas are patties, as I said, which is the best way I can think to describe them, made of corn meal or corn flour.  Mostly I´ve found them filled with cheese and happily grilling on top of a banana leaf.  You just eat one piping hot off the grill for $1000 pesos (about 60 cents), más o menos, and you are full for 10 hours.  I  ate them often on the northern coast.  What Mironda and I found last night in the zócalo (town square) of Guatapé was not only traditional arepas de queso, but arepas de chócolo, y arepas de queso con lecherita. 

Arepas de chócolo are made of a different kind of corn, a bit more sweet, darker yellow, thinner and larger, and my new favorite kind of arepa.  They are served with hunks of butter and queso blanco on top. Good thing Mironda and I split one.  It was awesome.  Then we decided to try the arepa de queso grilling right next to it.  The three folks manning the stall were efficient as hell with taking orders, and keeping the arepas coming.  They  kindly cut this one in half for us as well, then proceeded to drizzle some thick white sauce on top.  We decided not to intervene and trust that it was a necessary part of the experience. And wow, did that thick white sauce make the experience.  It is called lecherita, which is really just sweetened condensed milk.  It was divine.  Smushy, warm, cheesy, sweetness.  It was divine. Divino...

Then we decided it was time for vegetables, so we opted for the fried mini potatoes.  Little balls of salty starch that soaked the pathetic brown bag they were contained in.  (You really can´t avoid fried food here. Most of the time I find it frustrating, but occasionally I find it wonderful.  I will dedicate an entire post to buñuelos soon.  They are a fried ball of dough that I never thought I´d find myself craving daily….) I think Mironda and I agreed we didn´t like those particularly well, so how about another arepa de queso con lecherita? Excellent choice.

Now it was fruit time.  We ordered a jugo de mora (blackberry.)  It was light and fruity and simple and refreshing.  It tickled our sweet tooth and now it was cookie time.  I won´t talk about the cookies because both were disappointing.  They were typical Colombian panaderia (bakery) cookies, more or less chubby sugar cookies with various toppings.  Now we were full, now we were done.

That was our evening.  That is what we ate.  This is what we each spent : $5,600 pesos, or $3.29 USD.

Arepas de queso

Arepa de chócolo

Arepa de queso con lecherita (dulce)