This innocent dive of a restaurant is located at the foot of the road that leads to the Teleferico. It has a basic daily special with your selection of one kind of meat (I chose chicken over pork and beef), rice (white or "moro" with beans), cole slaw, and a scrumptious slice of fried plantain for about US$3. The diner has indoor and outdoor seating, and it seemed that all the customers (including myself) walked in warm and sweaty and looking for something refreshing. The ambience is sterile yet comfortable at the same time, although a few pesky flies were buzzing around. I ordered a cold Pepsi, and the amiable hostess (who spoke some English) asked if I wanted any ice. Not today, the pop was cold enough.
One of the other hostesses handed me an unusual local fruit. It had the shape of a small pear, the dark purple skin of a plum, a pit about the size of a peach's pit, and a deceptively juicy white inside. It was soft and fuzzy, lightly sweet and refreshing. They say you should be careful with fruits, so I sliced my freebie fruit into wedges and did not eat the peel. The hostess playfully admonished me by saying that the entire fruit should be eaten, but I did not want to take the chance. Ironic, since this day was like a personal Fear Factor program, as I walked along a dusty highway, elevated in a dubious cable car thousands of feet in the air, and rode on the backseat of a speeding motoconcho without a helmet.