When you’re meeting up with someone you know in Colombia, there are a few common smalltalk questions they might ask you. Most are pretty similar to what you’d hear in other South American countries like, “como estás?” [“how are you?”] or, “qué tal?” [“what’s up?”]. One that seems unique to Colombia is “¿qué más?” [literally: ‘”what else?”]. I’ve been told that it’s equivalent to “how’s it going?” and so if that’s the first question I get, it’s easy to just say “bien” [“well”]. I get tripped up if they ask me “¿qué más?” when I’ve already used up my bien. For example, I get this a lot:

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My first stop in Peru was Máncora, which is a surfing / beach party town in the North. I’d heard about it from lots of people in my hostel in Quito and decided to check it out for myself. While there, I spent most of my time with this group of Argentinians I’d met at my hostel (seen here playing an epic game of gigantic Jenga):

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For my first lunch on my own in Quito, I decided to just head into Old Town and wander around until I found something that looked good and cheap. The first restaurant I came across was Menestras del Negro:

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