By Nick Rosen

Visitors, take note: a fun night out in Quito does not have to end with your head stuck out a taxi window, singing “I Know You Want Me” at full volume while the stranger you’ve been canoodling with tries to pull you back inside the cab. Oh, it certainly could– and visiting one of V!VA’s Top Ten Places to Get Inebriated at the Equator is a good way to kick off just such an evening– but there are plenty of alternatives. In fact, V!VA’s hometown has a number of nocturnal attractions to keep the teetotalers among us entertained.

Peculiar Películas

Ocho y Medio is located in Quito’s La Floresta neighborhood, but it wouldn’t feel too out of place in the trendier parts of Brooklyn. The theater uses its four little screens to show Ecuadorian movies, the latest indie hits, and strangely wonderful German art house films from the 1970s. Though the movies are subtitled in Spanish, sometimes the theater shows English-language films. Grab the opportunity to slip on your skinny black jeans and come hang out at this hipster haven.

More conventional multiplex theaters can be found at shopping centers throughout the Quito area. The most convenient option in southern Quito is the Multicines branch at the El Recreo shopping mall. The nicest theater in Quito’s north is the CineMark located at the Plaza de las Americas mall.

Live from Quito, it’s Saturday Night

Quito is also the best place in Ecuador to catch a live music, theater or dance performance. One place to make note of is the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, a large complex across from Parque El Ejido. The cultural center puts on plays, concerts, film screenings and art exhibitions.

Teatro Sucre, by flickr user dimplemonkey

In the Centro Histórico, El Teatro Nacional Sucre hosts opera, ballet, theater and dance in a beautifully restored colonial building on the Plaza del Teatro. While the Centro has a checkered nighttime reputation, it is easy enough to get a taxi to take you directly to the theater; you should not be scared off from dressing up and enjoying this unique venue.

Quito’s Café Culture

Just because you aren’t drinking alcohol doesn’t mean you’re fasting, does it? By all means, warm up at Café Mosaico with a hot chocolate. Enjoy the ambience, the food, the view and maybe even your company. The hillside neighborhood of Guápulo is also chock-a-block full of atmospheric little cafés. Take your pick of Café Guápulo, Café ChiQuito or Mirador de Guápulo.

Be a Mall Rat

Alright, you probably haven’t spent your nights out goofing around at the mall since high school, but Quicentro, the city’s swankiest shopping center, is a popular hangout for the locals. Long after most streets in town are deserted, you will find Quiteños strolling and checking out the shops at the mall, which stays open until 8 or 9. If you want to stay even later, the attached bowling alley, which claims to be the most technologically-advanced one in the whole country, remains open until midnight.

Quicentro Mall, by Luigi Ochoa

Go see a movie, take in the ballet, bowl a few frames. Abstaining from drinking is not abstaining from a good time in Quito.

While Munich nurses a hangover from its Oktoberfest, which came to a close yesterday, kegs are being rolled out all over the world this month in order to celebrate the planet’s third most popular beverage. A number of beer festivals take place in South America. Some cities have been putting on lederhosen and dirndls in October for quite some time, while others are only just beginning to tap Germany’s premium party export.

In Brazil, Brahma, local and craft beers flow at Oktoberfest Blumenau from the 1st to the 18th. Last year nearly 600,000 people drank 374,000 liters of beer at what has become the biggest beer festival in the Americas. Most everything that you’d find in the Bavarian version can be found in Blumenau, from traditional food-Kassler and Eisbein-to oompah (blasmusik) bands. There are also nightly drinking contests and even a bierwagen that distributes free beer.

Every year the small alpine-esque Villa General Belgrano, in Argentina’s Cordoba province, swells with beer drinkers and orchestras. It kicked off its 46th annual Fiesta Nacional de la Cerveza on the 2nd with a traditional ceremonial keg tap, and the party will play out in Parque Cervecero until the 12th, featuring dances, a parade, and the election of a beer queen.

More than 25,000 people are expected in Malloco, Chile, when it celebrates its fifth Oktoberfest Fiesta de la Cerveza from the 29th to November 8th. Revellers congregate in a German restaurant, Der Müncher de Malloco, as well as in the city center to guzzle more than 100 different types of beer. There is also a home brew contest, where you can sample the competing blonde, amber, dark and specialty beers from hobby brewers. *January is also a hopping month in Chile, with a two-day beer festival taking place in Llanquihue, and a Kuntsmann Cervecería-sponsored bierfest in Valdivia.

Lima, Peru’s Oktoberfest Cusqueña runs from the 15th to the 18th,  serving up plenty of sausage, pretzels and massive mugs of Cervecería Backus’ exclusive festival edition of Cusqueña. Peruvian beer festivals also take place in Chiclayo, Huancayo, and Cusco.

Prost!

 by Karen Nagy

Argentina: Morcilla

photo by Raúl Hernández Gómez

Argentine’s are known for their meat and for throwing a good BBQ. And when they’re slaughtering all those pigs and cows for tasty steaks, they don’t let much of the animal go to waste. In fact, the congealed blood is used as the primary ingredient in morcilla: a dark sausage flavored with garlic and onion, and a bit of meat from the head of the animal.

Belize: Agouti

Found throughout lowlands and rainforests, this rodent is one of the biggest in Latin America, weighing up to 13 pounds. While they are easily tamed and make for affectionate pets, the agouti is still hunted by lots of indigenous communities for its meat, which is apparently quite tasty, kind of like a gourmet pork. However, it should be noted that three species of agouti appear on the endangered species list.

Bolivia: Chuños

Potato preparation is nearly endless: hash browns, french fries, baked potatoes… 2-year old freeze-dried papas? In the high plateaus of Bolivia, dehydrated potatoes are a staple in the diets of Quechua and Aymara communities. For five days, the purplish-black variety are exposed to the freezing nighttime temperatures of the high Andes, then left out in direct sunlight, and finally stomped on to remove any excess water. This process creates a wrinkly, mealy (and apparently still edible) food source that can then be easily stored and transported. The chuño is often used in soups, or turned into flour, which can be purchased in most grocery stores and markets in Bolivia.

Brazil: Feijão

photo by Kai Hendry

This traditional recipe was born in colonial Rio de Janeiro by slaves who used discarded pig parts to create this now popular stew. Feijão has become the national dish of Brazil, eaten today by all social classes. It is made by slow-cooking black beans with a variety of salted pig parts: snouts, tails, feet and ears. Some recipes also include smoked pork ribs, bits of bacon, beef tongue and loin, and it’s usually served with rice, greens, and orange.

Colombia: Hormiga culona

For centuries, big-butt queen ants have been collected every spring upon emerging from underground nests, toasted in salt, and eaten as a traditional snack in the Santander region of Colombia, typically as a Semana Santa treat. But recently this delicacy has been gaining popularity outside the borders of Latin America, as well. Apparently the crispy, nutty taste of the hormiga culona lends well to gourmet recipes: Belgian-chocolate-dipped ants and lamb in ant sauce are two of the hottest new ways to enjoy this 6-legged snack.

Chile: Ubre

In certain regions of Chile, the udder of a cow is just as likely to show up on your plate as it is to be found being pumped in a dairy. To prepare this giant gland, it’s soaked in water for a couple hours to remove any last bits of remaining milk in the teats, then tossed on a charcoal grill. The texture is spongy and the taste is smoky. Buen provecho!

Ecuador: Lemon ants

photo by Jon Connell

You have to wonder who first discovered that these tiny ants have a citrus flavor, but they’re eaten live and are truly lemony, and are now on the menu for most intrepid travelers visiting the Ecuadorian jungles. Read more here.

 Mexico: Tacos sesos

Tacos are a staple in Mexican cuisine. Tacos sesos aren’t that much different from the usual chicken or beef version, but instead of the typical bean and meat combo, these tacos use cow brains as the main filling. Brain tacos are typical street food in Mexico—and make a nice mid-day snack for hungry zombies.

Nicaragua: Huevos de tortugas

For five out of the seven types of sea turtles in the world, the Pacific and the Caribbean beaches of Nicaragua are some of their preferred spawning sites. While many international tourists come to Nicaragua to see the arrival of the turtles during these periods, others come for the eggs. Though this has now been recognized as an environmental no-no, it is part of the Caribbean culinary traditions in Nicaragua to eat sea turtle eggs. Usually raw. The eggs look like steamed ping pong balls with a soft shell, and typically a hole is poked in the top, a couple drops of hot sauce or lemon juice are squeezed in to “cook” it with a bit of salt, and the raw concoction is followed by a shot of rum. While it sounds exotic, leave the eggs to make turtles, not people-food. 

Peru: Cuy

photo by Jorge Gobbi

This typical Peruvian meal is called cuy because that’s the noise this animal supposedly makes. Commonly known as a guinea pig and a pet in North America, the cuy is a main Peruvian food source: bred in captivity, skinned, put on a skewer, and cooked on grills throughout the country. The meat contains zero cholesterol, and is often served with peanut or hot pepper sauce. This animal has played an important role in Peru for centuries: cuy bones were apparently found in the tombs of the most important Pre-Incan authorities, and today Peru has dedicated one day every September to celebrate their favorite furry critter.

Evidently Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez reads my blog, because this morning he echoed my recent post and declared that Peru is the “Culinary Capital of the New World.” He based this assertion on the many cultural influences present in Peruvian food and the overall quality of food in his nation. Far be it from me, a lowly blogger, to contradict a president, but perhaps Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Cuba, or the guy in Buenos Aires who cooked me those awesome steaks last time I was there may want to comment?