A Vegan in a Land of Guinea Pigs for Breakfast

Hello Hannah 😊

I am a vegetarian. True, it is a challange in South and Central America but luckily in bigger towns there were good vegetarian restaurants.

I met a vegan when I was in Mexico. She said she always finds vegan food in Chinese restaurants.

It is not impossible as long as you are open minded about what you consider to be meals. There is always something you can buy but it may not be what you usually eat. When there are no restaurants which sell vegetarian food, I just go to the markets and shops and buy anything vegetarian and eat it. The down side is that this would impact a bit on your social life, because you wont be eating out as much with others.

The good news is that tortillas and beans seem to be a common meal in Indian villages at least so if you dont mind the lack of variety, then this usually provides a vegan option. Also sometimes you might be able to go in the kitchen and choose what you want them to cook for you .

One annoyance is that you will be sometimes be branded as a self indulgent, health freak and be treated with impatience.

What I do when travelling is keep some things like nuts and dried fruit with me, for when there is nothing available locally that I would eat.

Mel Reply to this

"Soy vegana" is the Spanish for "I am a vegan" (for a woman) however there's no guarantee that people will understand precisely what that means (though I'm sure that's a problem in any country, not just ones in South America). "Soy vegetariana" is the Spanish for "I am a vegetarian", which will be more universally understood but obviously isn't quite specific enough. Not sure how good your Spanish is, but you may need to learn some phrases to describe exactly what you can and can't eat.

If no-one answers on here, I'd search on Google for some vegan travel forums. Reply to this

You should really check out bathingoptional.com. It's a travel log for a vegan couple that have traveled all over the world. Probably good tips for you there!

Reply to this

I lived in Santiago Chile for 1 and a half years. Living in a place is much different than traveling. I was able to scope out the best supermercado and cook in my own home. while traveling you rarely have that option. I found myself eating salads nearly every meal, AS my meal. This was not enough, obviously! One needs protien and other vital nutrients. I would almost say it is nearly impossible to be vegan while traveling. South America was where I started eating fish for the first time because I really had no other option if I wanted to remain healthy. Good luck to you. Reply to this

Do dont worry, not everybody likes guinea pigs, i personally find them to look too much like a rat. When it comes to andean countries, you will find most dishes are based on rice and some cereal or beans (lentils, trigo, quinoa, payar) plus a meat, sometimes at a restaurant i asked to have my rice and pumpkin puree "without the stiredfried kidney please" or whatever, and asure them you will still pay the same for the dish. In cuzco there are lots of vegetarian and organic restaurants, for sure su will find some vegan stuff, most of the owners are foreigners. Reply to this