You Go Nate!

CUY GLORIOUS CUY

[note: I could only get the above picture to upload, for the rest you'll have to click on the hypertext links.]

On Saturday the seven of us, (Alana, Tammie, JuanCarlos, Ruben, his sister Charro, her two-year-old Anderson and I [the latter two are in the above picture]) hopped on a bus and went to the nearby town of Tipon "Land of the Guinea Pig" as JuanCarlos called it, to eat Cuy. Cuy is Guinea Pig. It's considered a bit of a delicacy here and it was interesting.

There were Cuyerias (Guinea Pig-arias) all over the town, but Ruben was approached by a lady who invited us up to her Cuyeria and so we went with her. It was basically a few tables and chairs on the lawn of this family's back yard. They had a special Cuy oven and a nice garden. There was also a parrot in the tree near our table that could talk. It would mainly say, "Ola!" but sometimes it said, "Callete!" which is "shut up." It was random.

Soon the Cuy came out of the oven and we ate our great feast. It was a little strange breaking the body of this poor little Guinea Pig in two, but that's how you get to the meat. The meat was a little bit tangy, nothing like chicken. Tammie was kind enough to do a scientific disccetion of her Cuy. It was pretty good, and for those of you that are squimish, it could have been worse. Anderson found the head of someone's cuy and went around making sure everybody gave the cuy-head a kiss. Then he beat the parrot with his water bottle.

After eating our feast de cuy we went to a nearby soccer field where everyone played cards except for Anderson and I who chased sheep and one pig.

We returned home that afternoon and went about our various activities, mine being clothes shopping because I needed more nice outfits to teach in. Ruben and JuanCarlos helped me (the girls had to go to a birthday party, I think Alana got to be a clown) I found what I was looking for and one pair of pants, two shirts and a DVD later we returned to the apartment.

That evening I made myself a scrumptious dinner and we watched Oceans 12. That night I dreamt that I was in Willy Wonka's Cuy Factory. There was a place where we got to pet some live cuy before they were sent to the ovens. And on Wonka's desk was a platter of bite-sized cuy to pop in your mouth. I blamed the cuy for this dream.

The next day was Sunday and I understood around 10% when I was paying attention.

I'm still busy with my TEFL, I'm procrastinating writing an essay and preparing two lessons right now just writing this. I am also pretty much over my illness.

...okay I really gotta get back to work.