Huamchaco - a surfers spot, don´t you know?

We had a dramatic start to our time in Huanchaco. Arriving in Trujillo, seven hours after leaving Cajamarca, we decided that we would go a further twenty minutes onwards to Huanchaco, a quiet beach town. It seemed a more inviting prospect than another city stay.

We flagged down one of the many minivans that shuttle people from city to beach and back, and sqeezed in on the half-width bench, right behind the driver that they sometimes use if the van is getting really full. Somehow our back packs were hauled on and placed practically on the other passenger laps. They didn’t seem to mind. Balanced on this half bench and clutching onto as many of our bags as possible, the driver went about accelerating and breaking as hard as he could between passenjer pick-ups and drop-offs. He seemed to be trying to set a new world record for time taken to get to Huanchaco! Its not the first time we’ve experienced this mad dash to pick up passengers while at the same time trying to counter the lost time in actually having to stop to pick someone up, but its usually best to have a proper seat and something to steady yourself with.

After getting into the spirit (of being thrown around in the back of a van after a seven hour bus journey) – its your only option really – we arrived in Huanchaco and, as quickly as possible, hauled our belongings out of the van before it sped off again. Unfortunately, there was an old lady waiting to get on after we were out of the way, but the driver had not seen her. In a miscommunication between the conductor and the driver, the van accelerated off with the lady half on. The sliding door knocked her to the ground in dramatic fashion and then the van stopped, the driver realising what had happened.

We helped her to her feat and seeming unhurt – these old Latin American ladies are made of strong stuff – she made another attempt to climb in, while her friends outside the restaurant gave the conductor an earbashing about it. I was left feeling surprised I had not seen this happen before.

It was already dark and we didn’t want to traipse around for too long, so we checked into a very cheap hostel called My Friend. The good atmosphere and the equally cheap food offers in their restaurant - it was all about the pasta dishes for under $3, including drink and garlic bread – meant we took a room and ordered some of the aforementioned pasta.
After a walk along the sea front we returned to our room and discovered a newly hatched nest of cockroaches. But at first I thought it was the odd one or two and as they were fairly small, I went on a killing spree. Sophie then noticed Mommy and Daddy cockroach hiding in the gap between the door frame and the wall. We then realised our efforts to kill were futile, there were plenty more babies where they came from! During my stay at My Friend, I didn’t want to have to befriend these guys too.

We found another hostel. It wasn’t as cheap, but it was clean and had a distinct lack of crawley “friends.” I explained to the staff at My Friend that one or two you can expect, but lots of cockroaches isn’t what anybody wants and they understood. It wasn’t a bad place. The restaurant really was great there and, to a certain degree, there isn’t a lot you can do if cockroaches come to stay, until after they’ve been noticed.
We decided to stay in Huanchaco for a few days, which quickly turned into a week. The place was very relaxed and it was an ideal temperature, hot in the sun, but cool in the breeze. It wasn’t the best beach you’ll ever find, but it wasn’t too crowded, especially being low season, meaning you could always get shade if needed. But Huanchaco is very much a surf destination. There are some really impressive waves, and some equally impressive surfers on them. The waves break at a left hand 45 degree angle to the shore, meaning they can surf down the coast in one long stretch. One surfer couldn’t understand why we had come to Huanchaco if it wasn’t for surfing. Sorry to go against the grain on that one!

Cajamarca - agua, agua, agua..

We left Chiclayo for Cajamarca, a city further south and high up in the Andes. It was a long bus journey but then that's something that we'll be well used to before long. We didn't have a nice air-conditioned bus, but we had beautiful scenery, which was better to look at than the latest dubbed Jean-Claude Van Damme film they had decided to put on!

Cajamarca is set in a basin surrounded by green hills. It reminded me a little of Banos in Ecuador but bigger - plus it has a lovely central square. And it was wet. Finally the wet season is living up to its name. On our arrival, a short break in the rain allowed us to leave the bus station and walk into town. Water ran everywhere. I didn't see many drains but only oversized gutters along the sides of the roads where the water flowed like rivers. It was time to put away the shorts and flip-flops!

After popping my head in a few places I found a hotel that for 30 Soles (under $10) that seemed like a bargain - it came with a private bathroom and TV. Unfortunately when we returned to check in with our bags, the room we had been given had a bit of a security flaw. Above the door to our room was a large rectangular hole where a pane of glass should have been. The room itself was nearest the main entrance and it was all too easy for someone to shimmy over and take our belongings. It's a paranoid life I have to lead!

Still, no problems, the young girl working at the hotel showed us up to the only other free room which was on the top floor. She could only have been about twelve and getting two towels was hard enough, let alone moving rooms. Much better for security we took the other room. The next day however, the rain really came. It was a proper afternoon downpour that lasted a good few hours. Our top floor room however, was not the place to be. The roof wasn't really up to taking such a pounding of torrential rain, and one by one puddles started to appear. A few puddles here and there you can put up with - it wasn't exactly a five-star place - but when the drips started over the bed we had to again call the services of the twelve year old. Even she suggested we move back to our original room without prompting, security problem or not!

Earlier that day we had jumped on a last-minute tour to see what is said to be the oldest man-made construction in South America. OK, so the guide book has a statistic on every monument, ancient citadel and archeological site making you feel you shouldn't miss out on it, but this sounded pretty cool. Near Cajamarca there is a plain on a mountain range called Cumbe Mayo. Here we saw some of the pre-Inca channels that run 9km across the mountain tops redirecting drainage water from the mountain. It was presumably for irrigation and drinking water however we learnt of sacrifices that took place specifically to let blood into the stream - not so sure I'd have wanted to drink it! The construction of these channels dates back to 1500 BC and it is really impressive how intact they are, still carrying water. They also made us climb through into a cavernous rock and out the other side. Not entirely sure why as it was almost pitch black inside. I think it was once a sacred place.

It was good to be in the countryside and with the rain and the green surroundings we felt we could be back in the UK! Maybe we should high-tail it back to the nice warm coast!

Sipan and Tucume

Peru isn’t just all about the Incas, I’m discovering. I’m looking forward to Machu Picchu further down south, but in the meantime there are some things to explore made by some folks who were around a little earlier, namely the Moche people – 100-800AD. These guys were big on diverting river water into canals for irrigation and well known for using mold technology for their pottery, if you didn’t know.

 From Chiclayo you can visit the archaeological sites of Sipan and Tucume that have been excavated for the past twenty-five years or so. You can do a day tour that takes you to both these places, plus a viewpoint or two, but we decided to break it up and go ourselves. 

It worked out well this way. When we arrived in Sipan, one of the other passengers in the minivan happened to be a guide and offered to show us around for whatever sum we were prepared to pay. I’ve decided that getting a guide really is the best thing to do when you’re visiting ruins or tombs. Unless a place has been decked out with plaques explaining everything or your guidebook explains a lot, you won’t get much out of it without a guide. It also worked out as a bit of a language swap too!

We learned that there used to be a village on the Sipan site. But much like the Chinese at the last Olympics, they weren’t going to let a few peoples homes get in the way of the ‘bigger picture’!

At Sipan there are three pyramids, one formerly used for burials, one for ceremonies and the other for administrative work – literally bean-counting activities. The burial pyramid consisted of layers and, so far, the lowest layer excavated contained remains dating back 1800 years. All the remains, ceramics and gold have been moved to museums, however they have created detailed reconstructions of what they found for you to see. The Sipan site museum, although not containing the majority of artefacts found, is really impressive and I was excited to find that what they had kept the original 1800 year old remains for us to see – human and llama.

The Moche certainly gave their important folk a good send-off. Found in one of the tombs was a priest clad in gold, with some wives, a llama and a dog thrown in for good measure! A total of eight human remains were found in this tomb, presumably seven of which were sacrifices.. there to keep the priest company in the afterlife.

The following day we visited Tucume. It was a hot day and we arrived at the entrance to pay the admission fee. The woman behind the counter offered us insect repellent for an additional 1.50 Soles. Having not seen any mosquitoes since the border entering Peru we politely declined. Then on cue there suddenly appeared a dozen mosquitoes aggressively trying to extract some of our blood. We quickly changed our mind, purchased the repellent and slapped it on. It was a funny situation and I couldn’t help thinking the woman must have had a tin of trained mosquitoes and opened them with perfect timing!

Having already learnt about the pyramids at Sipan and a bit about the Moche people, we decided to have a wander around Tucume without a guide – not that we were offered one anyway! At the 1000-year-old ruins of the city here, you can climb up one of the pyramids and get a spectacular view of the twenty-five others, the walled citadels, and the ancient cemeteries. Although there is something slightly unnatural about the pyramids, you wouldn’t immediately assume that they’re man-made. Certainly the Spanish didn’t. They left them alone thinking they were just mountains and hills. But from a high position, and no doubt due to the excavation work already done, it is easy to see what the ancient culture created.

The knowledge and perception of these ancient cultures will keep evolving with each new find, and at Tucume they reckon that there is still much more to be discovered there. We were able to see some of the work in progress and it really is a painstaking process.

Chiclayo - Peru

As soon as we left the bus station I was struck by the energy of Chiclayo. Forget being awake all night on a bus, I felt ready to go for a plod around the city. Perhaps a shower was in order first though!


On all our travels, I can’t recall a place giving such an overall feeling of happiness. Peruvians, so far, seem to be the friendliest people we’ve encountered on our journey south from Mexico. Here people seem to spend much of their time with a smile on their face. I’m yet to find out if this applies to the whole country, or if it is a special combination of a pretty city and many hours of sunshine that keeps people in good spirits. And they all want to strike up a conversation, even more so than Colombians. They’ll take the chance that you might well turn out to be from the US and come up for a chat. Whether you’ll understand them is a different matter - its almost like a different language from Ecuador. But anyway, for whatever reason (no doubt a political one) I’m pretty confident I won’t see any “gringos go home’ graffiti here.

The other striking thing about our first day in Peru was the food. We had heard rumours that the set menu cuisine varies a great deal more when you get to this country. Apparently it is not always the standard dish of rice, a small piece of fried meat, fried banana and salad/beans – apart from Mexico serving everything with hot sauce to try to make it interesting, most countries haven’t strayed from these ingredients, and trust me, it gets pretty boring. But that’s a sacrifice you make if you want to eat cheaply.

No, Peru (so far) has torn up the script when it comes to cheap set menus. They have introduced two things; higher quality food, and choice. I’m not so sure how they’re managing it, but they are able to provide four or five different main dish choices. And they’re serving up things like chicken fillets, fish fillets, things in sweet and sour sauce…amazing! They also have an alternative for starters too. For example, you can have something called Papa a la Huancaina which comprises; a bed of lettuce, on top of which is a lump of mashed potato, covered in a hollandaise type sauce and on top, a piece of hard boiled egg. Maybe that description doesn’t sound all that nice, but it really is. It certainly beats a hot soup when its 30degC outside!

Oh and just a word on soups. It’s nice that they use animal parts for stock - for the flavour and all that. But do they have to leave it in the soup when they serve it? Can anything spoil the appetite more than delving into your soup bowl to bring up a chicken foot on your spoon?

Anyway, perhaps I’ve ranted about food enough. It is something I have felt strongly about while travelling though. I don’t function well when hungry and sometimes what you purchase can be so disappointing, you find yourself eating solely to fill a hole. I enjoy my food. Yeah, I know, it’s a tough life hey!

It seemed there is at least one taxi for every person in the Chiclayo. The streets are full of these little yellow Daewoo things, with the drivers constantly beeping their horns believing every person on the street to be their next fare. And I don’t know how we didn’t see a crash every five minutes either. The driving is so terrible and risky it’s comical!
So, enjoying the food, the weather (hot but with a cool refreshing breeze) and the people, we felt right at home in Chiclayo. The city seemed to buzz at all times of the day and especially at night. We’ve been so used to city centres being pretty dead in the evenings unless it’s the weekend. But this was Chiclayo on a Monday night, and we could hardly move down the pavement for people going out to eat and drink.

To Peru!

First a word on Loja. We decided to break up the journey south with a stop off there, in southern Ecuador. While it has some pretty enough sights, there really isn't much to do there. Looking at the photos I took now makes me think we got to stay somewhere quite cool for a night. It really didn't seem cool at the time. There just wasn't a great lot to do there. No harm done though - except to my back courtesy of the banana-shaped mattress the hotel gave us!

Our first overnight journey in a long while: I looked forward to seeing if I’d be any better at sleeping on a bus. No, as it turned out. But a bus journey in the Andes is never going to be tranquil. There are far too many twists and turns. The bus itself didn’t have generous legroom and no matter how far the seat reclines, if you can’t move your legs you’re never going to get comfortable.

 So, the first half of the journey to Peru didn’t involve much sleeping. At 3.30 am we came to the border at Macara. Here everybody disembarked to stamp out of Ecuador and stamp into Peru. It was a strange experience. The border crossing was shrouded in darkness and the immigration huts had minimal light, presumably so as not to attract the masses of mosquitoes hanging around in swarms. But nonetheless it was probably one of the smoothest crossings we’ve had.

Back on the bus, the terrain had now changed to desert. But it was pretty flat, which meant I was able to get in a position for twenty minutes sleep or so. Once you accept that you’re not really going to sleep much, the experience is a whole lot less frustrating.

 We arrived early in the morning to the bustling streets of Piura. The air was surprisingly fresh and cool and we were greeted and welcomed to Peru by many a stranger in the street and they pointed us in the direction of the bus station for Chiclayo. Yep, we were hopping onto another bus, but this journey would only be three hours – a piece of cake! Despite the lack of sleep, I found myself enjoying the atmosphere of Peru already.

Isla de la Plata

The reason that tourists journey up the coast to Puerto Lopez is for the most part to visit the Parque Nacional Machalilla. Part of the national park includes the small island of Isla de la Plata, reached by boat in about an hour and a half.

To visit the island you must take a tour and the price is pretty much fixed by the tour companies in town. You also need to buy an entrance ticket to the park itself but that lasts for five days and you get access to Los Frailes beach and Agua Blanca, an archaeological site. When the whales aren’t in town, going to the park and the Isla will set you back $50 USD. It isn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but enough to temporarily break the budget.

The other thing that probably swayed the balance in deciding to go to Isla de la Plata was its comparison with The Galapagos. Isla de la Plata is the poor man’s Galapagos trip, according to many.

So, once in Puerto Lopez, we got ourselves on a day tour to Isla de la Plata. The first thing I’ll say is that it should not be mentioned in the same breath as The Galapagos. It just isn’t a fair comparison. Not that I’ve been to the Galapagos, but I’ve seen enough of people’s photos to know that it’s an amazing unique place. It’s in a league of its own. But that’s the only criticism I have.

So, Isla de la Plata is Isla de la Plata. The trip comprises the boat to the island, a tour around the island where a guide explains about the place and the birds that live there, lunch back on the boat and then some snorkelling. It is a really nice day trip and, if you’re into birds, then an excellent opportunity to see some rare ones. The island itself is a fairly dry place and it was interesting to learn about the different weather systems that are present out at that point in the ocean.

The trip would be even better in whale watching season but as it was it was a great day out – even if our group consisted of a lot of very odd-looking people. Not meaning to be shallow but perhaps it was the most random collection of humans to ever venture onto Isla de la Plata! I wondered what the birds thought of us.

To the Ecuadorian coast..

It was time to take our newly acquired Spanish skills off somewhere else. As we’d moved around a fair bit in Cuenca, lifting the backpack onto my shoulders was not too much of a strange feeling, although it had gained some weight in the form of Spanish text books!

To get to the pacific coast we first took a bus from Cuenca to Guayaquil through Cajas National Park which is a road that winds up and eventually down through the Andes to sea level. It’s quite a spectacular journey in itself. For a time you are totally immersed in the clouds and I did have to spare a thought for the guys up there laying the new road in such murky and damp conditions.

We arrived to the bus terminal in Guayaquil. The terminal has only recently been built, has a mall and a food court where you can choose from a variety of outlets such as McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, plus many others equally good for your health. I took advantage of a $1.60 Big Mac, safe in the knowledge that I’d lost some weight in Cuenca. It’s a good job my diet out here is so good I can do that once in a while! Hmm.

The next step was to buy a bus ticket. Not so easy, it turned out. There are over one hundred different ticket booths stretching along a corridor the length of the terminal. Ecuador isn’t that big. How can there be over a hundred different bus companies operating out of one terminal? Well, somehow there are. And I had to find the right one. It took a while, but eventually I found a guy who said he could sell us a ticket for Santa Elena. The book said that we had to change there to get to Puerto Lopez, and his advice matched. So, off we went. Incidentally, the old adage of one dollar per hour for Ecuadorian bus journeys seemed to have gone out the window.

One of the amazing things about Ecuador is how varied it is. Just a few hours before, the air was fresh and the climate spring-like. But now, heading west from Guayaquil amongst lush green surroundings, the air was thick, humid and the sun seemed so much closer, when technically we had moved further away from it.

The bus headed up a duel carriageway and frequently swerved off the road to pick up more passengers. Spreading up from the sides of the busy road was a combination of masses of litter and hundreds of houses. As with most large Latin American cities, Guayaquil has a sprawl of shanty houses covering the surrounding hills and making the shiny mall seem all the more incongruous. The sight of it still fascinates me though.

After a short wait in Santa Elena, we got our connecting bus, a further two hours heading north up the coast to Puerto Lopez. The town of Puerto Lopez is made popular by its proximity to Machalilla National Park, and in particular, Isla de la Plata. However, it was far from the tiny fishing village I thought it would be. The town is pretty large and was thriving with people. And this was a Sunday night! You’re lucky if you can find anywhere open on a Sunday evening in most places.

That said, it’s not at all a polished or refined place. There is nothing fancy or upmarket about Puerto Lopez. It is a lovely beach town that is rough around the edges, having just the right amount of crumbling buildings, dust on the road and the all-important stray dogs. But anywhere with such beautiful sunsets cannot be bad! (see above)

We stayed at a place called Hostel Maxima. One of the owners, Maxima, was very friendly and offered us all kinds of different rates according to the room type. She then told several stories that basically all had the same theme. People who come to stay for a day or two end up staying two weeks, a month or six months, depending on which story. Her American husband though had a crazed look about him. He had strange staring eyes and only said anything after a skin-full in the evenings. My guess is he spent his spare time head butting walls! The explanation just seems to fit.

Also staying at Hostel Maxima was Jim and Yuko and their daughter, Takeisha, who had only turned three the previous week. They had started in Argentina and were working their way up the continent in the opposite direction to us. I would have thought that backpacking with a three-year-old would be anything ranging from extremely difficult to near enough impossible. However, they seemed to be doing just fine and Takeisha was taking it all in her stride. Apparently she slept well (across their laps) on the long bus journeys, and, thanks to Bolivian markets, could have toys without breaking the daily budget! Oh, and I’ve never met a three year old with such an adult grasp of language. She could tell us who was drinking rum and who had beer. I was relieved that she also knew that she’d have to wait a good few years before she could join in on those drinks!

Maxima had said that people stay for longer than they intend to in Puerto Lopez. As nice as it was, I couldn’t see that happening with us. Notwithstanding the risk of overstaying our 90-day visa, it was the thought of what lies ahead in Peru!

Cuenca

Having been here for two weeks, it’s about time I wrote about Cuenca. The main reason for staying so long, and it is a long time for us, is to learn some Spanish. Not sure if I’d mentioned before, but we’ve been surviving since Mexico on basic transactional stuff and slowly building on those skills, all in the present tense. The only person I could describe anything to in past tense was Sophie, in English, and she was more than likely there with me, rendering it pointless.

Anyway, Ecuador is a relatively cheap place to take lessons (oh yeah I did mention before the couple of lessons we had in Quito) and Cuenca is a great place to stay put. It is a very relaxing place. Even the noisy, ‘I’d run you over if I was allowed to mount the pavement’ buses are bearable. It’s “muy tranquil’ as they say here. Its also a very clean place, the tourist board is very helpful and you can tell that they have made an effort to make Cuenca a nice place to be. That said, it’s not the same as somewhere like Banos which has aimed to make itself the No.1 tourist destination. It is more genuine than that, and a place where I cringe if I hear someone bluntly speaking English to wait staff - it’s not difficult to make a little effort now is it? After all, even I knew how to order a beer in Spanish as a lad in Puerto Banus on the Costa del Sol!

The people here are all very friendly too, which is nice and refreshing for a city. (I’ve just realised how much harder it is to write a blog when we’ve been stationery for two weeks). The architecture, as you’d imagine, makes the place. They have a lot of churches and many buildings dating back a couple of hundred years, which have been beautifully restored and maintained. Many of them make wonderful hotels. 

Last week we met a couple of Brits on a bus who had been invited to a party hosted by the British Ambassador of Ecuador. Apparently it was a ‘get to know you’ kind of party and they assured us that all British citizens would be welcome, plus there would be free food and drink - which sealed the deal! We rocked up last Wednesday and, we found, it was more of a presentation about what the Embassy can do for you if you’re in any kind of difficulty. Not a lot, as it turned out, especially if you wind up in prison. They can ‘keep an eye on things’ in most instances, which is good to know! The presentation also covered all kinds of possible natural disasters typical in Ecuador and, with all the moving plates underneath and soft soil, there are quite a few of them!

Their main plug for the evening was an online system whereby you register and let them know that you’re in a particular country and where you’re staying. It’s actually a good idea, even if you’re just travelling through. It helps them inform your family or friends should something happen, and generally deal with a disaster should it occur. Given recent events in Chile, it highlights what can happen abroad, so I’ll jot down the link to their site; https://www.locate.fco.gov.uk/locateportal It doesn’t take five minutes to register.

Afterwards, the food arrived as promised and so did gin and tonics – obviously the national British beverage! We chatted to our fellow countrymen, met a lovely girl who is teaching English here and a splendid chap doing an internship for a magazine in Quito. All jolly good!

What else, what else. Ah yes, museums. You can’t beat a good museum and, apparently the museums here are hard to beat. We’ve been to the Aboriginal one. It was fairly small and you can easily tear around it if you’re not careful. But nonetheless, they have some fascinating artefacts, including an instrument made of hanging stones that made wonderful sounds when you struck them. I can’t remember what the stone was.

The main museum, The Banco Central, we haven’t been to yet. But it’s supposed to be impressive.  Perhaps I’ll add a paragraph to this after we do. I know, you’ll be holding your breath!

Guinea pig in Cuenca

Sooner or later it had to happen. We ate Cuy, otherwise known as guinea pig. It's a traditional dish here in Ecuador and if you walk down the street in most towns you'll see it, usually being roasted on a spit. Admittedly, it doesn't look a pretty sight. On the spit it looks like it is doing a superman impression, like its last act was to jump off a cliff but instead got caught in mid-air! You can still see its rodenty teeth, its whiskers, its sharp little claws reaching out in front, and its hairless body. It all looks decidedly unappetising, to me anyway!

Left to our own devices, I'm not sure that we would have tried cuy. When we get around to eating, I'm usually pretty starving, and the thought of eating something that may turn my stomach makes it unlikely that I'll plump for it. And it's not cheap, either. Apparently, your own cooked rodent will set you back about $20... and that's a sizable chunk of our daily budget.

But we weren't left to our own devices. We are studying at the Simon Bolivar language school, a particularly sociable place - they run free salsa and cooking classes in the evenings - and, I imagine to be even more inclusive, we were offered to join the students and teachers for lunch, a set menu of guinea pig. Well, why not? I thought that if anything, it would be good to get to know our fellow students and maybe practice a little of the Spanish we spent all week learning. As it happened, everybody pretty much spoke in English. Damn that universal language!

We walked across town in a group of about twenty-five or so, and settled in at a nice looking wooden-clad, cosy restaurant. Then we were offered a chance to view our meal before it had been cooked. At this point everyone whipped out their cameras (I'd foolishly left mine behind) went up and took plenty of snaps of the hairless and gutted animals. What a way to whet the appetite!

Ten minutes later dinner was served. Or rather, dinner fell on my plate. The waiter brought out plates of various guinea pig parts and as he was setting it down in the middle, a guinea pig head dropped in front of me. It was all rather dramatic. In particular, the German and the Kiwi opposite found this very funny. And it really was. I think it was the final nail in the coffin of my appetite. I forced myself to take a 'middle' section of the animal and, importantly, try the skin while it was still crispy. It was like crackling and perfectly fine if you're into crackling. The meat on the other hand was slimy, salty, full of small bones and in general there really wasn't much of it. Guinea pigs aren't really known for their vast quantities of meat. Once you've removed the fluffy fur, there's not much underneath.

The rather strange American woman next to me enjoyed professing how much she was enjoying the meal. Fair enough, but it was done in that annoying "I'm eating something cultural and isn't it great?" kind of a way. Trying the food in the first place is enough. You don't need to pretend you've found a replacement for a Chateaubriand!

Let's face it, there are plenty of other animals in this world that taste better than guinea pig. Perhaps someone should challenge me on that. And yes, terrible as it makes me, I am one of these people who doesn't like to think too hard about where the meat on my plate has come from. At least not at dinner time.

But this is all my own opinion. If you're in Ecuador (or Peru apparently) give it a try. You might like it! Oh, and by the way, I had intended to source a picture of an uncooked cuy, but it's just too disgusting. I'll leave it to you to do a Google search if you want to see gruesome images!