A vegan in Sucre, Bolivia

It's now been a week in the cute little capital of Bolivia, Sucre. I still cannot believe that I'm actually in Bolivia. This is a country that I have been wanting to go to for ages - ever since I heard that McDonalds was banned from the country I've been interested to get to know this place. Turns out that Bolivians rather buy their burgers form the local street vendors rather than buying them from giant evil food chains. Apparantley though, this McDonalds-ban also has to do with the president being pretty anti-Western, so anti-Western that the clock on the constituation building in La Paz is anti-clockwise. The government claim that they are being creative and does not have to obey Western principles.. 

Speaking of the Government. Today the referendum is held, which means that the people of Bolivia vote yes or no for constituational amendments removing restrictions on the number of presidential terms. Because of this, everything in Bolivia is shut; all stores, restaurants etc. We were meant to leave Sucre today to go to Uyuni, but had to stay another night because all the roads are closed and there are no buses running. 

A week here has gone really fast though. I feel like all I've done is study Spanish and eat. So I can't really complain. I started a language school on Tuesday and have had private classes 3 hours a day for 5 days and only during this time I feel like my Spanish have improved lots! Could be because I have to use it alot, since it is pretty rare that people here understand English. Even my spanish teacher didn't understand much English. Sounds strange, but I think this actually made me learn more, only speaking Spanish during a whole class. 

Sucre in itself is a gorgeous small capital, crowded with many people. It is almost as if the town cannot hold all of its citizens. The streets are cramped all the time, mostly with locals but also some other tourists who are most of them here to study Spanish as well (there are so many Spanish schools to choose between here!)

The capital lies 2810 meters above sea level, and because of this we've had mild altitude sickness since we arrived. We've had some trouble sleeping and constant head ache, but it usually gets better with drinking tea with coca leaves. It is good that we have started off here in Sucre though, because I can already feel my body getting used to the altitude and we are gonna go even higher when we go to Uyuni and La Paz next week. 

And so, to the most important thing - food. Thanks AGAIN to happycow.net, my travel saviour, we've found some really good gems and it hasn't been hard at all to live in Sucre as a vegan. I've loved being here foodwise. I mean you'll find cheap avocados (that also taste divine) in the central market (where you can also find all veggies, fruits, bread, nuts and food you can imagine), but stuff that are really expensive at home are really common and cheap here. In an ordinary bread roll that comes with your quinoa soup, is made with chia seeds. This is definitely something I could get used to.

Here is a little list of the food that we've found during our week. Since there is only one fully vegan restaurant, we did go back to the same restaurant more than once instead of having to go to meaty restaurants where you have to ask for the ingredient for everything all the time.

PREM El Arte De Vivir
Open for lunch, and dinner (according to staff, but not in real life..)

Prem is the vegan mecka of Sucre. We went straight here on our first day in Sucre and fell in love immediately. Here in Bolivia, a breakfast usually only consist of coffee or tea and maybe a piece of bread and for lunch (almuerzo) they go ALL IN with a three or four course meal. Almost every restaurant offer a set menu for lunch, and so Prem does the same but of course, all vegan. 

We went for lunch here two times. For starters they served lentil soup and the other time quinoa soup and there is also a salad buffet available every day included in the set lunch. For main we had pasta pesto the first time, and the a shepards pie with soy meat and for dessert we've had rice pudding (which I'm not the biggest fan of unfortuantely..). Apart from all of that, you also get a drink and for all of this AMAZING food which makes you feel like you have to roll you way out from the restaurant, you only have to pay 25 Bolivianos (!)

After two lunches here though, I started to feel bad for not being able to eat it all up. I'm not able to eat that much in the middle of the day when it's hot out. So we tried to go by for dinner a few times, but all of the times it was closed (seems like they had trouble finding staff that's been able to work their shifts..). Which is very unfortunate as their dinner menu looks amazing - soya burgers, burritos etc. It's a shame that you can only get the set 3 course menu during lunch and not be able to choose anything else. Except for one time when they sold cupcakes for 4 Bolivianos..

Condor Cafe
Open 8:30am-11:30pm

Condor Cafe is the only vegetarian restaurant in Sucre that is opened from morning to evening. The great thing about this cafe is that much of the profits goes to their non-profit organisation, which aims to end poverty in Bolivia.

Unfortunately there aren't that many vegan options, but their daily soup is vegan and is only 8 Bolivianos! Their coffee is amazing and they also do delicious sandwiches (they have a falafel sandwich which I never tried, but it LOOKS good. Yep I know cause I was staring at others peoples orders..)

Other veg-friendly places we've visited

This Thai Restaurant That I Can't Remember the Name of!
Only on the road down from Condor, before the 25 de Mayo square!
Open for lunch and dinner

A really cosy restaurants which offers a couple of vegan meals. Chiang Mai Noodles, beer and crisps was a very good combo (Yes, the noodles are egg-free!)

El Germen 
Open for lunch and dinner

I think we found the darkest place in Sucre, when we found El Germen on a Thursday night. There was no one in there, it was quite and hardly any lights. A bit creepy actually, and I don't know why we didn't turn around to run, I guess we were too hungry. They do not have much vegan on their menu at all, the lentil burger and soy burger unfortunately contains egg, so I had a tofu and tomato fry thin instead which was lush. So I am glad we stayed in the end. And they did put music on in the background after we sat down..

Florin
Open morning - late

And so we found quinoa again. This time, in the form of a burger in a dutch owned pub. On Tuesday nights they have burger night, with 20% off all burgers that we took advantage off and only paid 26 Bolivianos for our burger with fries. That is basically the only vegan thing you'll find in there though.