Best thing I seen all year.

Cuy (Guinea Pig). A Peruvian Delicacy...

In the Andes region of Peru, Guinea Pig or Cuy is a speciality. These cute furry animals were an excellent source of food for the Incans since they are small (can be carried easily) and breed very rapidly. But they are now considered a delicacy because they do not provide much meat and they take about 2-3 hours to completely skin before they can be cooked. The first time we tried Cuy was in Puno. It was in a nice restaurant and the presentation of the Cuy was was fancy. It was deep fried and the ends were wrapped, very nicely, in tin foil. It tasted like chicken, kind of, and there was not much meat so the main part of the meal was the potatoes. We joked about how we could imagine about 12 Cuy in a bucket (like fried chicken comes in the States). The other couple in our group did not try Cuy at that time so later they wanted to try it. The experience was totally different than the one in the gourmet restaurant. We drove outside to the country, about 40 minutes from the central of Cusco, to a Cuyiceria (a restaurant that specializes in Cuy). Actually it was more a women's house who sold/cooked Cuy for income. These places are popular on Sundays when whole families gather to eat Cuy together. The women's daughter was playing with a Cuy, perhaps it will be the meal of some person the next week. The Cuy was being cooked in a wood-burning homemade oven. It was stuffed with some spices, although I do not know what they are. The smell was horrible. The meat did not taste too bad but it wasn't appetizing since the smell was so bad. But there was so little meat anyways that it was not hard to not eat much meat. I mostly picked around and played with bones, and ate the potatoes. The potatoes were excellent. In Peru there are over 400 varieties of potatoes; I tried many types I have never tasted before. Of course we couldn't resist the urge to play with our food.

More Pictures...

My pictures of Bolivia are now up and I am working on the Peru ones. Hopefully I will finish today.

Im a slacker....

I have been slacking and not posting anything so I am starting again. Please look at my pictures from my last trip and I will be updating more (my goal is to post SOMETHING once a week).

Pictures

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Estancia La Catita

Last weekend we visited an estancia (ranch in English). It was very interesting. We boarded a bus at 8 am and 5 hours later we arrived. We drove to the estancia which was in the middle of many fields, soy bean, wheat, and maiz (corn). After we rode horses for a little bit, we drove around town where I saw this on the road. Next we headed to another ranch that raised pigs, cows, and chickens. I learned alot about these animals, but most of all I confirmed many things I already believed; pigs are dirty and love to lay down in the mud is one of these. Pigs beieve it or not are also very cute when they are young. After the pigs we went off to the cows and the milking process. Stupid me, I thought that with technology all around us, there was still a guy sitting on a small stool all day milking the cows by hand. Not anymore. The cows are put into an area where they are fed. At the same time there are suctioned things put on their udders that suck the milk out into a tub which transfers the milk into a huge container that was in the other room. We tasted the fresh milk, very rich, kinda greasy, and warm. It tasted great.One interesting (or very gross) thing about cows is when they get nervous, they pee, so while we were watching the milking, a lot of peeing was going on. The next day was the exciting one. We saw about 20 bulls get castrated. It started off with 2 sprays of anti-bug spray on each cow so the bugs would not bother the soon to be fresh wound. Next a shot of iron in the body and a bull was released one-by-one to be pinned down and cut.

The cut was very small. After the incision was made, a testicul was pulled out from the sack, then cut; the process was then repeated with the other. The end result was a bucket full... After the un-maning of the bulls, we went back to the ranch to eat lunch. We had grilled cow and yep you guess it, grilled testicles (or criadilla in Spanish). I ate one. It had a wierd texture, like Tofu. I wouldn't eat it again but its cool to be able to say I have eaten it. What's next? Cow eye perhaps.

Football in Argentina.

The Argentine people are very passionate about Football. (They should be, many of the best players come from here). Many have replaced religion for their favorite team, spending their Sundays at the stadium rather than church. Some teams, like River Plate, are owned by the fans and there are elections for the board that makes the team's choices regarding who to sign, trade, etc... I went to two games so far. Both were huge rivalries. The first was River Plate vs Indepedante, also known as "The Classic". The score was 3-1,with River Plate winning This is the opposing fans (Indepedante).The next game I went to is known as "Superclassic". It is the biggest rivalry in Argentine football (well besides the Argentine national team and their neighboring team Brazil). It is the game of Boca Juniors (the best team in the league) and River Plate. Unfortunely the score was 0-0 but it still was fun because of the fanatic fans. This is a picture of River Plate's fans at home during the game against Boca. All that white paper on the field was thrown by the fans a minute before this was taken. Their are hundreds of people under those flags, which are just unrolled for a few minutes before the game.