Greg vs. the Guinea Pig

I'm in Kansas City right now, and nothing interesting has happened to me yet. Also, I'm feeling too lazy to try to write about nothing. To fill the void in my creativity, here’s an entry that I wrote while I was in Ecuador last year that I never got around to posting. At the time of writing, I hadn’t gotten the “traveller’s affliction” yet which I strongly suspect was brought on by the cuy. Looks like the guinea pig won after all. I was sick as a dog, although it was nothing compared to what I got in Delhi. That could have been better described as a “sick as an industrial strength, high-pressured, automatic vomit machine”.

I spent another day just kind of hanging around Quito. First I went to the Plaza de Santa Domingo right outside of my hotel and checked out the church. After that, I just sat in the square and people-watched for about a half hour.

I decided to see if I could find a closer trolley station that headed north. Trolley stations aren’t all that hard to find. Just look for the wires over the street and follow them. My walk took me to the Plaza de Independencia where I probably spent another good hour taking pictures and people watching. From there, I followed the trolley wires, but the station that I took yesterday was closed, so I walked on to the next station. It looks like the station I took before is as close as I’m going to get. For twenty-five cents, I guess I can walk for ten minutes.

I took the trolley a ways up and got off to find a restaurant that served cebollado, a soup made from seafood and a bunch of other stuff that was supposed to be quite good. After a bit of wandering, I found the place. The cebollado that I ate was “mixto” which is Spanish for “contains every animal you might have possibly found on Noah’s ark”. You eat it with some sliced onion, lime juice and spicy sauce. Popcorn is a ubiquitous side-dish in Ecuador which I find interesting, but not objectionable.

One thing to note about the hot sauce is that it’s actually hot. It’s not like in Colombia where they make a tasty sauce, keep it in the same room as a hot pepper for ten minutes and call it “piquante”. It actually is spicy. Lots of water and three bathroom breaks later - lesson learned.

From there, I went to Parque Catalina and went to the Natural Science museum and Botanical Gardens. The gardens were great. I spent hours just wandering around. I stopped for a “mora” juice which is kind like what you would get if a blackberry, raspberry, and a currant had a party in a blender. Love it! Have I mentioned how good the juice is down here? You can’t get half of these fruits at home.

After the museum and the gardens, I still wasn’t hungry, so I took a walk into “Gringolandia” which I’m sure needs no translation. I wouldn’t say it’s quite a backpacker slum, but it’s as close as I’ve seen in Quito. There are tons of western-style restaurants with most of the signs on the street in English. I chose a cool little joint called Café Sutra for a couple of drinks to help me work up an appetite for cuy.

One of the things that I wanted to do while I was down here was try “cuy” which is guinea pig. This is considered an Andean delicacy, so I had to try it. Don’t get me wrong; I liked Hammy Hamster just as much as the next kid, but it had to be done.

On the way into Gringolandia, I had walked past a place called Mama Clorindas which I had heard serves cuy. It was fate. I softened myself up with a shot of aguardiente (local South American firewater) and ordered a whole one. I was quite looking forward to it at this point. When it came, it was about twice the size I was expecting. I told the waiter it was more like a baby goat than a guinea pig. The cuy was breaded and I have to say wasn’t quite as good as I was expecting (nothing to do with how it was prepared). I had heard it was like a cross between rabbit and chicken, but a lot of it is just skin, fat, and bone with not as much meat as one would like. All that aside, I still recommend you try it if you get the chance.

After that, I wandered around to check out what was going on with the Halloween parties; I had heard music and seen a group of people congregating. By the time I got there the music had stopped and everybody seemed to be just waiting for something to happen. I hopped in a cab and came home.

Random people I met:

A couple from Australia who were heading back home tonight. They had spent twenty-five days here, but didn’t speak much Spanish. I helped them order tacos at the snack bar at the botanical gardens.

I had a good chat with the cab driver on the way home. He was trying to learn a bit of English. His wife is Dutch, and is a local tour guide. They spent six months living and working in the Netherlands and then six months in Germany. I learned that Halloween is not a holiday for kids in Quito – it’s more of a party thing.