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The Foods of Colombia: Where They Eat Soup for Breakfast
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Aug 11, 2025
Heading to Colombia and not sure what to expect on the dinner table? Well here we go through the traditional dishes of Colombia from the fried fish in Cartagena to the arepas in restaurants all over the country. From refajos to aguardiente we talk about the drinks too. Filmed in Colombia #colombiafood #colombianfood #colombia Visit Our Amazon Store for Drinkware, cookingware, travel gear, and other necessities of life. http://www.amazon.com/shop/woltersworld Follow Jocelyn on Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/jocelynwoltersworld Follow Simply Jocelyn on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Simply-Jocelyn-A-Globally-Inspired-Life-100312851709273/ Follow Our Shorts Channel for quick travel tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSIWRrLCcqamLlTEEBLFLA
View Video Transcript
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Hey there fellow hungry travelers, Mark here with Walter Swirlons
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Today we're in Cartagena, Colombia, and today we're going to talk about other things you need to eat when you come here to Colombia
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because honestly, there's some fantastic food when you're here, from the meats to the insane amounts of soups to arepas
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which you're going to have when you're here. Arepas, if you're not sure, this is one of those things you're definitely going to have
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multiple, multiple times when you're here in Colombia. And arepa, think of it like a cornbread, but not cornbread as in
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cornbread you think of home think of more like a tortilla kind of thing and that is going to be
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with a lot of meals it'll be a side dish it could be for breakfast it could be for lunch it could be
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a meal and there's a lot of different versions of it you can have it plain right and i find it the
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thinner the better but you can have with arepa de queso which is basically arepas with cheese in the
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middle and they love their cheese here which i'll talk about but also they have arepa de huevo where
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they make it with their tortillas in there and they like put an egg in there and cook it so this
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is arepa de chocno. It's kind of sweet. It's not a salty cheese. It's good. I love the texture too
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I see myself eating a lot of these this week. This is one of those things that local Colombians
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they might just have an arepa for dinner, but it will be a side dish all the time. So arepas
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don't be anti arepa when you come here because honestly it is like the most Colombian food you're
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going to have when you're here. Another thing you need to realize when you come here, you'll notice
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that a lot of times avocados pop up because avocados are a thing here. So you'll see it as a
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side dish. You'll see it as guacamole with your patacones. You will see it grilled at somebody's
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you know, party and stuff like that. You go to a barbecue. It is a thing here. And so you'll see
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that. But one thing I think you really need to realize is actually soups are super big here
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And I'll talk about breakfast soups later, but some of the bigger soups you're going to have when see here if you're in Bogota you're in a ayaco. Ayaco is basically a chicken potato soup you'll
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have that's a very famous one that you'll have there. You can get other parts of the country as
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well but sancocho. Sancocho if you're in like Bogota and Medellin it's going to be meat and
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potato soup right there and there'll be some stuff on the side but that's the main thing there. But
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if you're here in Cartagena instead of the meat like the the beef and stuff they put in there
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it's going to be fish and so you'll have that but sancocho something you really have to have when
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when you're here, but like the soups that you're going to have, the coles you're going to have, it's very much a thing and you want to make sure you have that. And another thing you want to make
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sure you have that's a warm thing is chocolate con queso, which is hot chocolate where they rip
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up cheese and put it in the hot chocolate. I know it sounds crazy, like why would I put cheese in my
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hot chocolate? But honestly, it's fantastic. That mix of the sweet and the savory just works so well
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together. And when you're here, you're going to notice when you go to different parts of the country there's definitely different types of food when you're here like here in Cartagena they have
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the oroz con coco which I'll talk about later the coconut rice but when you're in like Bogota they
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love their meat meat and more meat so you have all these different things you can have when you're
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here because it really is a different like it's not just the biomes that are different everywhere
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around this country it's also the food now another thing that's going to pop up a lot on your plate
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are patacones and what patacones are is basically you fry it you smash a banana and you fried and and then you smash it again and fry it again and it almost like a thick banana chip or more like a banana plant like a banana tortilla almost you have and sometimes it be big and they
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put meat in it or cheese on it or sometimes you just have it plain and it comes as a side and
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that's something you're really going to like you might share it with your friends and I got to tell
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you if you're looking for something to share with your friends when you're here in Colombia it's fritanga and fritanga it's basically all these different grilled meats together or fried
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of meats together and you have that and you share it with friends and a lot of places here you can't
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order it by yourself it's they'll say it's like oh no it's for two people and the thing is you'll
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have different meats that'll pop on it pop up on it wherever you go but if you're in like volgatar
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they have like intestine meats so be aware of that that kind of shied away for it i like it better
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here in um in cartagena because it didn't have the intestine stuff in there but if you like the
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intestines it can be pretty good but if you don't be aware of that oh also fritanga sometimes it's
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called picada as well, like little pick on it kind of thing. So they have that as well
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What do you think? Okay. It's kind of rubbery. Now, one of my favorite things to have when you are here, it's kind of like a stew, but
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casserole, casuela de moriscos. So seafood casserole or basically what you'll have is like clams and
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shrimp and you know calamari in there and this cream sauce it's so good oh my god it's so good
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and then on the side they'll have the coconut rice and the patacones as well that's one of my
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favorite things to have and if you're near the coast or even if you're not near the coast so good and when I talk about different things around the country like if you're in Bogota in
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the mountains you're gonna have obviously more meat than the seafood kind of things and like in
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bogota you'll see a lot of places that'll have like carne in the name like andres de carne which
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is like andres of meat and you'll have lomo which is beef you have porco or cerdo which is pork
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you have pollo which is chicken like the grilled meats here are really good in the mountains
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if you're near the coast stick to the fish and i'll talk about the fish later because
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my god there's so many good fish dishes you can have when you're here so one thing you need to realize when you come here to colombia they do eat a little bit different one thing i talked about
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they love their soups but you need to realize soup can be for breakfast yes i know i talked
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about the changua which is like the egg and cream and bread soup i talked about that earlier but
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just getting a caldo caldo de reyes caldo de pescado like basically like beef broth or rib
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broth soup or a chicken soup or a fish soup kind of thing is a very normal no gracias señor is very
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normal to have that for breakfast like that is their thing soup is a breakfast thing another
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thing that's for breakfast are tamales or tamales and now when you think of tamales like from mexico
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there's a small one's just a corn those are called envueltos here envueltos just a small little ones
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look like you see you know in mexican restaurants in the u.s and but here if you get a tomale tomales
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that's usually like it looks like a bomb like a leaf bomb and inside it'll have the corn meal it'll
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have meat and vegetables in it too so that could be another good breakfast thing to have obviously
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cheese which is very big you'll see cheese on your breakfast thing here little little buns and little
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breads and things so that's kind of a common little breakfast thing to have but you know here the big
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meal is at lunch so i want you to realize that when you meeting friends you want to go eat Lunch time that the big meal not dinner time and some kind of heavier plates you might want to have and i love it because they call platos fuertes the the strong plates the the main dishes um some of you might see like if you in
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bogota they love meat okay like meat's a big thing lomo which is beef follo is chicken porco
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cerro is pig i mean there's all kinds of pork chops steaks all kinds of stuff you can do that
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and don't feel bad about eating you think in colombia i should be having like caribbean food
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and stuff yeah they they eat their meats here too um also the fish here like if you're here in
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cartagena oh my gosh you cannot pass up the fresh fish fried fish is fantastic but if you're gonna
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be a parago which is snapper um they've got tilapia here it's fantastic and when you get the fish here
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when you get in cartagena get the orroz con coco the coconut rice oh my god it is amazing that's
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one of the dishes if you take anything home and put it in your like reserve of food you want to
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eat every day back home it's going to be the orosto coco the coconut rice and it's made a lot of
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different ways i think it's almost like fried rice with coconut in it and there's so many different
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versions there's no one version like everywhere you go is going to have a different version and they're all fantastic and if you're here in cartagena and you have the fish you get the
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fresh fish of the day it will usually come with orosto coco and and plantains you know the smashed
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plantain banana kind of things chips they'll have that i mean it's so good you're going to have that
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but if you're looking for fish like up in Bogota it's trucha or trout that's very popular there
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and of course there's another popular fish dish you know you do have the ceviche here especially
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in Cartagena it's very popular you have the white fish in there with the the tiger milk and stuff I
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mean if I had some years just fantastic shrimp cocktail which I know sounds simple but honestly
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if you're here in Cartagena you're on the along the coast get the shrimp cocktail the cocteles de Cameron well worth it when you are here and there's one little side thing I need to talk about because
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I know I talked about arepas at the beginning, but there's another food that shows up all the time
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It's a side dish, main dish, wherever, and it's avocado. Look, they love avocados here
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Like if you go to somebody's family barbecue, they might be grilling avocados
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Oh, you're going to get your plantain chips? It might have a dip of guacamole to go with it
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So just know, avocados are everywhere here in Colombia. So let's talk about when you go to the restaurants
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I think one thing you need to realize is don't expect super fast service when you do go to restaurants here in Colombia
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It's definitely much more of a have patience to get your place, have patience to get to your menu, have patience to order, have patience to get your drinks, have patience to get your food
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I mean, the people be friendly, but yeah, service isn't super fast when you're here
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And when you're going to be paying, if you're going to be paying with a card, they're probably going to ask you a question
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The question is basically, oh, is it from a debit card? Is it from a savings account
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Is it from a credit card? is that you're probably using a credit card. Make sure you remember crédito
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Crédito, por favor, which is credit, please. I think another important thing to mention
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when you're at restaurants is usually the tip is included. If you look on your bill
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and a reputable place will put it on there, it'll say propina. Propina is the tip
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and it's usually included, so you're okay there. If you want to tip more, you can totally do that
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It's not a problem, But I just want to give you a heads up for that because people do bring that one up
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I think as I just see a lady going by another thing you need to eat when you here I can believe I forgot to talk talk about it obleas obleas you see when you going around town and basically it like these wafers it like a wafer and then they put like caramel in it or they put some fruit in
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or whatever but it's basically like a wafer sandwich a big wafer sandwich you're gonna have that and a lot of times what they'll have in the stands they'll have the oblea and then they'll have
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the mango biche next to it which is basically i guess it'd be it's just mango sticks but usually
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there's a little something on them as well. You can have that. Those are kind of standard fare
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across the country when you're looking at, you know, street food. And also going along with that
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Mingo Bisha, just fruit in general. Like you're going to want to have lots of fruit when you are
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here in Colombia because there's so much fresh fruit when you're here. And I talk about the
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drinks earlier and stuff, but honestly, whether you're getting lulo or you're getting, you know
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mango or you're getting watermelon, you're getting whatever, there's so many fantastic fruits that
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are here. And to go along with that are the drinks that go along with it. Because honestly
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limeade limonada limonada de coco lulada there's all these drinks that are mixed with sugar they're
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mixed with sugar cane and the limes and the lulos which are these fantastic fruits like a looks like
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an orange it's more transparent and tart i mean it's just fantastic and i actually have a whole
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video on the drinks of colombia because there's so many drinks you need to have here but honestly
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the jugo the juices you always want to have that or you can get like the smoothie versions of them
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there's so many great drinks from here cholal which is basically like a fruit cocktail and
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condensed milk put together oh my god it's so good you're gonna have that but honestly my favorite
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is lulada which is basically limeade with those lulos mixed together it's so sweet so wonderful
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the little tartness from the lulos you gotta have that when you're here at least one time get a lulada
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okay and then you get the spirits that are here yes rum is very popular but aguardiente that is
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the local like spirit you want to have that and if you have a reflajo which is basically colombiana
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soda and beer with aguardiente that's got a little kick to it you can make some friends when you're
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drinking that around town um and yes there are local beers um club columbiana is one of the beers
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i like uh aguila is a very light beer that's nice there's a lot of local beers you're gonna get when
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you're here you can get international beers but save yourself the money and drink the local beer it's pretty good and if you don't want alcohol they do have some really good sodas that are here
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uh columbiana soda which is basically like a i don't know if it's tamarind it's more of a like
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rooty kind of flavored soda. They have that. It's a good mixer with a lot of stuff. Postobon
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which is a local brand of soda. Kind of think of like Fanta. All kinds of different fruit flavors
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whether you want grape or apple or whatever, they have that. That's nice. I know some people wonder
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about the tap water. And in the big cities, you can drink the tap water. It's okay. Brush your
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teeth, do all that. Might not taste so great, but it is doable. If you're in the rural areas
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stick to bottled water in general. And when you're here, always be hydrated. Always have a water
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bottle with you. I have one in my backpack because you need to stay hydrated in this heat. But
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honestly, go watch our videos on the drinks of Colombia. It's going to help you know what to
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drink and enjoy when you're here. It's the cocktails, the juices, everything. But anyway
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I just want to give you a rough overview of some of the things you should eat and a little few things to drink when you come here to Colombia. Obviously, I forgot a few things because there's
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so much great food here and really regional dishes where you go. You're going to have different stuff
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because it's not just the biodiversity that changes when you go around the country. It's
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the culture and the food as well. So go and enjoy the food you're here in Colombia. If you have other
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things we need to make sure people have, put it in the comments below and we hope you all can have a great time here in Colombia. And I'll say bye from here in Cartagena
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