Day 6: Alpacas, Guinea Pigs, oh my!

Upon arriving in Cusco, exhaustion had taken over and we waltzed our way over to our hostal and chose the closest restaurant the staff recommended. Pacha Papa, located in Plaza San Blas, offered a very traditional approach to Peruvian cuisine while still providing that touristic sanitary sanctuary we've been looking for in meals. Also fortunately for us, they offered their house speciality dish: Pacha Papa, which consisted of grilled Alpaca meat sautéed in such a phenomenal tastebud popping sauce that reminded me slightly of lamb. It was skewed onto a bone skewer and had such a tender touch to it. Emma got a salad.... Also, unbeknowingst to Emma, the side of a stuffed pepper wasn't stuffed with "beef" as she observed after taking a bite, but ground up alpaca - I found this to be highly amusing after she refused to take a bite of my alpaca - she on the other hand didn't....

The next morning we had signed up for a guided tour of the Sacred Valley as we were getting a tad burnt from planning every step ourselves and taking public transportation while relying on our broken Spanish. Come to find out, the places we went were actually only accessible by tour groups so that would have been quite interesting had we attempted using public transit. 

After a slightly confusing bus pickup where a van picked us up where everyone inside only spoke Spanish, much to our relief they merely transported us to a larger bus which was swamped with Americans (even had a couple from Middletown and Mystic Connecticut). Although it was refreshing to be amongst English speakers again and have the comfort of being bused around, that all quickly faded as we realized this was taking away from the thrill of entirely immersing ourselves into the local culture, sans the fact we stuck out like a bunch of bloody Yankees with massive backpacks. 

The day was enjoyable, the Sacred Valley is most certainly worth seeing, but it's essentially just a number of Incan ruins and having just seen Machu Picchu and having traveled extensively through Europe and the Roman Empire, well each stone just starts looking like just another stone. We first saw the Pisaq ruins which were perched a top a hill right outside Cusco and still fairly in tact. Then we saw the Ollantaytambo ruins (the town where you take the train to Machu Picchu), which just consisted of a ton of stairs that led to more stones that resemble houses. Both of which had stunning views of the surrounding hills, and it was interesting to hear about the Incan symbolism that was encompassed each ruin: their love for the East, the summer and winter solstices, the Milky Way, and the symbolic nature of the puma, the condor, and the snake. Lastly was the town of Chincero, a town where you were literally amongst the clouds and was still quite in tact but mostly from the Spaniards reconstructing it with their Christian influence. 

The more enjoyable part of the day was being taken to two different Peruvian markets. First the Sachsawayan market which just had a ton of tourist goods but allowed us to get some quality photo ops with some lovely Alpacas and guinea pigs (foreshadowing). The latter was a much more traditional and local market, the Pisaq Market, that was composed primarily of food but had some either quality or well crafted tourist goods. As was the case with all the ruins, we only really had 15-20min to stop at each place which isn't even enough time to begin to haggle. Thus, I'd say 90% of our day was sitting on a bus. 

The real excitement of the day was our dinner for the evening. Again, incredibly impressive what the Incans and also Romans accomplished without the use of modern machinery, but after one ruin they start blending together. That and hours upon hours on a bus, it was only fair to treat ourselves, well myself, to a proper Peruvian feast: Roasted Guinea Pig! 

For those weak stomached, vegetarian, or ever had a guinea pig as a pet growing up, perhaps would be best to scroll past the last paragraph on this page.....

.....We opted to go back to Pacha Papa that night as if one is to indulge on something such as a guinea pig, it would be preferred to do such at an establishment you trust. I will admit that after a while of eating/dissecting the little critter and having held one earlier that day, it was a tad gross. But it does taste quite delicious once getting past the part that they plate it for you entirely whole, crispy ears, eye holes, snout and all. Fortunately this restaurant does then take it into the back and quickly filets it for you. It really doesn't matter at that point considering you still have the scalp and skin that is brilliantly flavored with Andean spices and pancha chili, but is kinda tough to tear off. Oh forgot to mention, its tough to tear off as you have to eat it with your hands. When you're picking it a part there are a lot of tiny bones you have to eat around and spit out. Also, one must remember that they don't clean the thing out for you, coming terribly close to eating it's tiny heart, which some might enjoy but meh, that was really pushing it. Once you get past the legs, the majority of the meat comes from the underside which interestingly enough is composed of layers on layers of paper thin like meat. Taking already over an hour to cook, I wasn't terribly interested in picking every single piece of meat out of it, so fortunately for me, Emma for whatever reason wasn't in the mood to finish her chicken dish....

Well now I feel that I've crossed over that border where there is no type of dish that is off limits or too repulsive. Perhaps one day I will achieve my dream of becoming Anthony Bourdain's successor.