The food must be good.

We were at Plaza de Armas where beggars and buskers vie for a few coins from your pocket. Stand there long enough and you'll see some of them switch to automatic pilot going through the motions of performing. We dropped a few hundred pesos into a chalk artist's shoebox. I often wonder what comes first, the talent or abject poverty.

It was getting close to dinner time and we walked down an alley with a dozen hot dog vendors in it. Each one had a banner advertising an amazing deal: two hot dogs and a drink for 1,000 pesos.  That's as cheap as chips.  Truce wasn't hungry, one hotdog for me and one for Indiana.

In my broken Spanish I order el deal de stupenda. The lady behind the counter smiled at my attempts to butcher her language. 

The hotdogs were ready and she lumped on the raw tomato and cheese of some liquid variety.  And what of the tomato and cheese that fell on her fingers?  This is when I realised two things: one, the food must be good and two, she must have clean fingers.  She casually licked her thumb and finger clean before preparing the second hotdog.

Internal dialogue:  Pretend you didn't see it.  You don't know what happens to your food at a restaurant.  It'll build my immunity.  (Moment of realisation) She licked her fingers after the first hotdog - give Indiana the second hotdog.  It'll build her immunity.

Going Green to the extreme

Put your pitchforks and torches down.  I gave Indiana the first hotdog but she asked for the tomato to be removed.  As I scrapped my finger along the bun I felt that the sausage was colder than the belly of a one-legged penguin.

We opted out on the hotdog experience that night and lived to tell the tale.

An eclectic mix of building styles