Colombian Street Food

After departing Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, my travels around the Caribbean and Central/South America continued, as I headed to Bogota, Colombia.  I was fascinated by the city of Bogota, in large part because they have a crazy large street economy. Many average Colombian workers can’t afford the prices in stores, and as a result, an incredible street economy has developed. While this certainly means lots and lots of street food that locals regularly turn to for meals, it also means things like memory cards, toys, dish towels, iPhone’s and anything else you can imagine are also sold on the street.  In two follow-up posts, I’ll outline a couple of the more interesting street food items I ate in Colombia, but this post will serve as an intro, with some photos of some of the food related vendors on the streets of Bogota.

One of my favorite photos was of these two guys, who all day long went up and down a busy street using a microphone to hawk their mountains of strawberries:

Lots more photos below the fold!

Carts selling fresh made plantain & potato chips were popular and you’d generally see one every few blocks:

When work let out around 5 pm each day, the full-time street vendors would be joined by individuals who would suddenly appear on the corner of a side street, opening their car trunks to reveal a variety of tasty foods for sale during the post-work rush hour:

Despite the wording on the cart, there was no pizza involved, just kabob meat/veggies grilled on the street:

Late afternoon each day, a number of vendors  appear on the street with small shopping carts filled with Thermoses. They’re hawking aromatica, an herbal tea. Tea from each vendor will differ slightly, but many of them have a noticeable scent/taste of elderflower.  The tea is sold in small (about 4 oz) cups for 300 pesos, or about $.15 American.  During the post-work rush hour you’ll see a lot of people stopping to take a break from their commute, standing on the street for a few minutes while slowly sipping the aromatica:

A collection of pastries from one of the more elaborate street carts:

I have so many more eating adventures in Colombia to report on, so be sure to check back to So Good soon for all the details!