When life hands you tomatoes...

Some recipes require sun-dried tomatoes.  Period.  Anything else won't do.  However, they are either very expensive, as in Bogotá at about $15.00 for a little baggie, or are altogether unavailable, as in Huancayo.
The ingredients are all here - tomatoes and sun, much of the time, and both are cheap.  On the other hand, this place is just plain dusty.  A lot of the streets aren't paved, and a lot of ground is untended and bare.

What all that dust turns in to during the rainy season is another story.  For this one, suffice it to say that leaving the slices of roma tomatoes out to sun-dry would leave them kind of gritty.  So...

You have to innovate.  Paula loves getting in the car after church, because it's usually warm from the sun...and hey!  Great idea!  No dust!  Car-dried tomatoes!!

So next time you're in the third world and you just HAVE to have this tasty ingredient, remember the cargo space on your Nissan, and presto!

We hope that you can find what you need a bit easier.

Dave & Paula