Food to try

A thick, creamy potato soup with cheese, served with slices of avocado. The warm, comforting dish of the mountains.

Potato cakes filled with cheese, cooked on a hot metal plate. They usually come with an egg, avocado and peanut sauce.

A huge, puffy fried pastry, filled with cheese and covered with sugar. "Viento" means wind.

Small, soft bread rolls made of yuca flour and cheese. They go well with fruit yogurt.

Slices of green plantain (a cooking banana), fried, pressed flat and fried again. A side dish with almost every meal.

A whole pig roasted in the oven, served with llapingachos and salad. You can buy it in markets and simple local restaurants.

Roasted guinea pig, a traditional dish for special days in the Andes. Only for the curious.

Shrimp or fish in lime, tomato and onion. In Ecuador it is served with popcorn or banana chips.

Tuna soup with yuca and pickled onion, one of Ecuador's national dishes.

River fish wrapped in leaves and cooked over hot coals. A tradition of the Kichwa communities in the Amazon.

A sweet made from sugar cane. It is stretched and folded again and again, sometimes on the door frame of the shop. The sweet symbol of Baños.

Fruit ice cream, turned by hand in a large copper bowl that stands on ice. A tradition from northern Ecuador.

A thick purple drink of black corn and fruit, with bread rolls shaped like babies. It is sold around the Day of the Dead, 2 November.

A hot drink of cinnamon, fruit juice and sugar, often with a little alcohol made from sugar cane. It warms you on mountain evenings.

The juice of a small Andean fruit with a slightly sour taste. It tastes a bit like citrus and pineapple together.

A traditional drink made from fermented yuca. Amazon communities serve it to guests as a sign of welcome.