Breakfast in Buenos Aires

I know that not everyone gets quite as excited by the prospect of breakfast as I do, but when faced with the array of cafes in Buenos Aires, even people who normally skip this glorious meal must surely come round to my way of thinking.

Every street has one or more cafes with tables and chairs spilling out onto the pavement. In morning, people are invariably having the same thing; cafe con leche, freshly squeezed orange juice and 3 medialunas (croissants, but smaller, denser and sweeter than the traditional French pastry).

 Any cafe you choose will serve this in the morning, from tiny, scruffy places with menus on whiteboards, to the grand cafes of the city such as the beautiful Cafe Tortini with it's high ceilings, elegant decor and suitably snooty waiters. We ate this for breakfast every day in Buenos Aires, in a range of cafes. It's delicious, filling and does wonders for malbec induced hangovers!

Sao Paulo Cafes

Sao Paulo is seen by most people as a 'workhorse' in contrast to Rio, but it is also a massive foodie destination. Aside from some of the best restaurants in Brazil (and the world) and a varied nightlife, it has a huge number of cafes, especially in Jardins. They range from tiny rooms with plastic tables and chairs and no menus, to big airy cafes with posh snacks, wifi and an intimidating list of coffee choices.

Two cafes that we visited really stood out. The first was Suplicy. It's big and modern, with minimalistic decor and (welcome) air conditioning. The coffee was strong and delicious and they had lots of cakes and biscuits to chose from. The coffee was available to buy, either ground or as whole beans, and you could also buy t-shirts and mugs. It was recommended to us by the couple we stayed with in Sao Paulo, and we liked it so much we bought them a bag of coffee before we left.

'O melor bolo de chocolate do mundo' translates as 'the world's best chocolate cake' and is the name of a tiny cafe in Jardins. It is part of a chain of cafes opened by a Portuguese chef. The original is in Lisbon, but it did so well that there are now branches in Brazil, New York and Madrid. The cafe serves only coffee, tea, hot chocolate, chocolate cake and, appropriately, port.

The cake itself is a flourless, no-cook dessert, with thin layers of chocolate meringue (think honeycomb texture) sandwiched together with rich chocolate mousse and covered with dark chocolate ganache. It comes in traditional (53% cocoa), dark (73% cocoa) and low-sugar. We went for traditional. The textures were perfect, it wasn't overly sweet and it went beautifully with coffee. I probably need to taste a few more slices of this cake, and others, before I pass judgement on whether it's the best in the world, but it certainly gets top marks for now!

Kate

The Amazon part 2

Whilst in the Amazon we also did some piranha fishing.  This involved putting a small piece of meat on the end of a line and hook and waiting until you felt a fish nibble on it,  then you pulled the rod up sharply,  hopefully bringing the piranha with it.  This was harder than it sounded.  Kate and I both caught one each,  Kates was considerably bigger than mine!

The next day we ate them after they had been grilled.  There isn't much meat on piranha, but what little there was was a tasty, meaty white flesh.

The Amazon

After four days of sweating and being bitten by mosquitos we are back in the world of hot,  spider free showers and clean clothes.  Our four days in a jungle lodge on the Amazon area were fantastic,  and we got to see some great wildlife.

The jungle lodge was located some distance south of Manaus,  on the banks of the Amazon.  The Amazon often forms a complex of small rivers,  and the area we were staying was one such area.  Most of the trips consisted of driving though these complexes looking at wildlife from the boat,  but occasionally we would land and trek on foot (this is when we got eaten alive by the mozzies).  We saw toucans,  sloth,  eagles,  caiman and tarantulas amoung other animals.

On the first evening we found a large spider in our bathroom. Our guide deftly took it outside,  calling it a monkey spider,  which is apparently poisonous  but not fatal,  and has hooks on its legs. We later had another encounter with a tarantula on the trek.  The guide managed to hook him with a piece of palm leaf and could all hold him.

On this trek we had a canary experience very true to this blog's name.  We were given grubs to eat.  I had one raw,  and Kate waited until we had set up a small fire and ate hers cooked.  They lasted nutty and milky.

All in all a very enjoyable few days,  although I am now enjoying not feeling sticky all the time!