Gordo... that´s fat, to you people what don´t speak the lingo.

So, because I signed up for a spanish course which included one-to-one lunches with a spanish teacher eating traditional Ecuadorian grub, and I was staying with a great-granny who loved to feed up her little ones, I am officially getting fat. (No, the beers have nothing to do with it, cheeky.)
Monday - lunch at a spanish-colonial style restaurant, all crisp white tablecloths and shiny cutlery. Potato soup with avocado and cheese - the Ecuadorians love their soup, but even more than that, they like to put great big (tasty) lumps of vegetables or meat in the middle- try tackling that with a spoon!
Tuesday - lunch at a big lunch place that looks for all the world like an american style fast-food joint, but isn´t. Big juicy barbequed ribs on a wooden chopping board-style plate with salad and salsas. Yum! Of course, I´m taking local advice about avoiding salads, so I´m overloading on carbs and meat.
Wednesday - lunch at un mirador (a viewpoint) high up on a hill above Quito. The city is built in a volcanic valley, so it´s long and narrow, and from this restaurant, you can see nearly all of it. It´s actually the hill up behind the hostel I´m staying in, and which I´ve just discovered has a bull ring next door! Amazing what you can see from up on high! Course its the wrong season for bull-fights - should have been here in December! oh yeah.. lunch was llapingachos (big mashed potato cakes with cheese), fried egg and a selection of meats. not fattening at all!
Thursday - I pleaded with Sra de Varea not to cook me dinne on Thurs, cos I just couldnt eat any more! Lunch was a special event... I was going to try the local speciality of ceviche. Ceviche is raw fish, ´cooked´by a salsa of lemon juice, chillies and other tasties. Now, it would be a surprise if I actually liked this dish, right? Being fish, and all that. Ha ha! Its my new favourite!!! and possibly the best fish I have ever had. Have to grab a recipe and learn how to make it when I get home. I also had sopa de bolas verde (soup with platano balls), which is making a popular appearance in my diet now. Friends and family will have heard me rave about plaintain from my days in Stoke with the Jamaicans, and perhaps have even tried my fried plaintain... well this is the country for it! It is more popular than potatoes or rice here (ok, almost). and delicous. cheap. nutritious. fried: fattening. oops. well anyway - or as they say here, de todo modos - ceviche, sopa de bolas verde and beer in the sunshine. It positively felt like a holiday!
Friday - Argentinian steak! need I say more? anybody jealous yet? and vino, cos it was my ´last day´with Raquel.
All suggestions for dieting will be wholeheartedly rejected, before you start. I´m building myself up for Maccu Pichu. At least that´s my justification, and I´m sticking to it.