Bogota Blogger

On the road up the hill from the beach towards Casa de Felipe is an inconspicuous-looking (like most in Taganga) looking building on the left.  It’s Los Baguettes de Maria.  Maria is a Bogotano who moved to Taganga because she had a friend who suggested that she could start a restaurant there more easily than in Bogota, where the unemployment rate is outrageous, the living in expensive, and the competetion is fierce. 

Jose and I just wandered in one day and met Jim, a South African from Johannnesburg who works there.  We sat at the bar where he was making juices to order from a long list of the incredible tropical fruits that are available on the coast in Colombia.  I think that day alone we ended up ordering something like four different concoctions.  When you order a juice, you watch them peel the fruit, blend it, strain it, mix it with whatever you want (I like it with milk), so you’ve probably gulped it down just about two minutes after the fruit was peeled.  The only way it could be fresher is if they picked it off the tree when the order is put in.

                                                                                                                                                                                  The menu is almost 100% baguettes, with a few other things like fresh fruit salad.  Everything is made to order, with fresh and quality ingredients.  And even more amazing–the prices.  We paid less than a dollar for each of the juices, and the baguette we ordered later that day cost something like $2.50. 

Prices in Taganga restaurants aren’t really low, in general, so we asked Maria why she charged so little for her baguettes.   She said that, even though most of her business is from tourists, she doesn’t want people to come in to eat once, then leave and never return.  She said she gets customers from all over the world who say they heard about her great food and great prices from other folks, and that makes her happier than getting a few more pesos for her sandwiches.

So, Los Baguettes de Maria is definitely a stop to make if you’re in Taganga, and maybe even worth a special trip to the town.  The menu is in Spanish, English, and Hebrew, and has a couple of really creative sandwiches on it, and Maria and all the employees also have great advice about all the tourist things to do in and around town.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Out of Town Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.