Last weekend the cooperativa toured a nice cuy (guinea pig)operation at hacienda santa ana. All these cute little animals are destined for dinner plates, where they are usually served whole, splayed out rather obscenely. The eyeballs and brains are particularly favored by many. I myself have not been able to jump on the cuy bandwagon, when cooked they appear to be greasy little rats. Give me a hunk of pork or cow any day of the week over cuy.
We also went to the Polylepis Lodge up near Columbia, in Carchi Province. Some spectacular scenery of the paramo and the small amount of polylepis forest remaining in the Andes is a surprise, to say the least, in that it is a boggy landscape more likely to be found in Nova Scotia. I have some pix posted at the flickr link.
There was a beautiful crescent moon last weekend, with the crescent at the bottom of the sphere - something I think we do not see in the states. Also seen, for the first time by me, was the Southern Cross constellation, I mean it when I say it was breathtaking.
At the lodge was a high school group of about 40 from the coast, and one of my ecuafriends introduced me as a famous american singer of cowboy songs. I could have killed him, and probably will someday, but for the moment I had no choice but to fake my way through the only 2 even remotely cowboy songs I know - fiddler a dram¨and ¨¨tennesee stud¨. Äfter both ¨songs¨ my audience erupted into enthusiastic cheering and calls for more - I was mortified and passed the guitar to a young man who spent the rest of the night playing beautiful south american folksongs and poptunes, which everyone knew and sang along to. His performance was far far superior to mine! A lovely evening, all in all. (Still researching the beer post, it´s a lot of work, let me tell you)
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2 comments:
Hey Roger,
For years I raised rabbit and sold them dressed, ready to cook. Part of the American Rabbit Assoc. are members who raise guinea pigs and in the States they are known as cavies. And yes, some of the breeders eat them. Some are raised for their hair or some for the whole pelt and most are sold as breeding stock and pets and of course thousands and thousands are kept as show animals. Most big rabbit shows in the states also have a cavy show with it. But, I am with you, I don't think I want to eat any of them.
Brian S.
Hey Roger, Finally got around to checking out YOUR blog again. Thanks for the comments you made on ours - hope you enjoyed. I'm with you, I'll pass on the cuy. Altho it looks better than the video a friend of mine brought from Cambodia. There they really were eating rats! OK man, bring on the beer post!
John S.
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