When I reached Cartagena after almost half a year of travelling through South America, I was tired of meat, rice and french fries. It didn’t matter where we went on this continent, it seemed as if half of the restaurants would only let you choose which kind of meat you wanted to have with your dry rice and your soggy french fries. And it didn’t matter which one we went for, the meat seemed to taste the same everywhere.

I am not saying that we didn’t have amazing food along the way. I remember that Patagonian lamb, for example. Or the delicious sopa de mani in Bolivia, a soup rich in flavours and spices. But there had also been parts where we hadn’t been able to afford anything other than the cheapest and most tasteless dishes, particularly in expensive regions like Patagonia or Galapagos.…