Tipon

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Tipon

One of my friends Jen, a girl from California, had been talking about eating cuy (guinea pig) since she had arrived in Cusco a few weeks earlier. Eating cuy came into conversation with our spanish teacher at one of our lessons, she had advised that the best place for it was Tipon, a small village about 40 minutes outside of Cusco in the valley which was also home to some incan ruins. I told this to Jen and we decided that a group of us would attempt to get there that saturday. I knew someone who had already been so asked tips from him too. We met at 1 and set off as the sun shone down in Cusco. After getting rejected by a few taxis when we walked down to the poorly signposted 'bus station'. We waited a while and asked a few collectivos (small minibuses) as to their direction but all refused to be going along the way of Tipon. In a last ditch attempt we asked the next large taxi which fit 5 of us in and he gave us a good price so we all squeezed in and set off.

The road

winds out of Cusco, through the valley with fields of maize lining the road. We went through a place called Saylla which we had visited the previous weekend for a meat feast at a ranch style restaurant set on the hillside for Janek's (the volunteer coordinator at Yanapaay) birthday. Tipon was the next town along and as soon as the car started to slow down a host of women waving menus came running to the car. One woman hustled us the best and ushered us up off the road to her house with a makeshift covered area which had chairs and tables. She showed us her oven and the said animal. Two of the girls I was with did not like the sound of having such a cute animal so opted for the vegetarian option, the stuffed pepper, pasta and vegetables that came with our cuy. We orded two between the three of us and the taxi driver had one to himself. About 15 minuted later the animal arrived, fully intact, head and all. The skin is the main part that you eat as there is little meat on the animal. We picked our way through the animal which was quite salty and tough but tasty. The taxi driver also came to help us finish it off eating the head parts. Once we had finished the meal was topped off by a customery shot of anis, mmm!

The taxi driver then drove us to the top of the hill, about 30 minutes uphill out of Tipon onto the mountainside to the site of some inca ruins. The runis at Tipon are well preserved irrigation channels that channeled water down the hillside but were also mostly ornamental. We climbed to the top of the mountainside and marvelled at the view of the valley, almost seeing Cusco in the distance. Similar to most of our time in Cusco the rain clouds were building and it was only a matter of time before the heavens opened so we headed back to the car and back to Cusco having had quite a cultural day one way or another!

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