Cuy, That's Guinea Pig to Ya'll

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We opted for a low-key Saturday: there was 1 museum that we wanted to hit up, laundry, shop for souvenirs, and eat some guinea pig. Yes, that's right, guinea pig...but more about that later.

We strolled along the riverbank enroute to the Museo Pumapungo, it was teeming with folks out enjoying the sunshine. Some local ladies even hauled their laundry out and were washing it old-school style in the river, not an easy job. Once at the museum, we were a little disappointed -- most lights in the galleries weren't on. We couldn't tell whether they were trying to conserve energy or they hadn't gotten around to turning them on yet as we were among the earliest visitors that day. After straining to see some art pieces in the dark and struggling to make sense of their Spanish captions, we headed upstairs to the famed Ethnographic displays. As Ecuador is extremely diverse in terms of climate & people, the museum put together life-sized dioramas depicting the peoples in their costumes, in their homes, doing whatever they do. It would have been pretty interesting if not for the constant alarms informing us that we had 'entered a restricted zone and needed to leave immediately'. Apparently, they've had issues with people getting too close to the displays & opted for motion-sensitive alarms as deterrents -- too sensitive if you ask me as the alarm sounded with each step we took. We practically sprinted through to escape the obnoxious noise but not without checking out the shrunken head exhibit. Equally interesting and gruesome at the same time.

Speaking of gruesome, we had big dinner plans for Saturday evening -- trying the famed Ecuadorian speciality of spit-roasted cuy (guinea pig). Yep, like a big hamster, but anything with pig in the name can't taste bad, right? The folks at our B&B seemed pretty tickled that we wanted to try it and made us a reso at the best place in town, Tres Estrellas. J seemed a little underwhelmed at chowing down on our furry friend so we opted to spend some time pre-dinner at the cute little 'bar' set up at the B&B, chatting with the abuela (grandmother) and consuming some liquid courage in the form of a tasty Chilean red.

And we were off, wandering through the quiet rainy streets of Cuenca, in search of the tastiest rodent in all the land. We didn't feel any better about the situation when we arrived at the best cuy spot in town and it was deserted -- totally deserted with the exception of a shady card game going down in the front room. Our waiter graciously removed the head before serving up our cuy but much to our surprise, everything else was totally intact -- dinner & anatomy lesson in one! As one may guess, guinea pig tastes pretty much like chicken but is a huge pain to eat with lots of little bones, nooks, and crannies -- a lot of work without much reward. Overall, not the best chow of the trip but unforgettable nonetheless.

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