Food that bites back in Peru #wanderfood

Warning: Those with squeamish stomachs might wish to skip this post. I'm just saying.

Throughout my week in Peru, one dish popped out on almost every menu: cuy.

I saw it on chalkboard lists on roadside stands in the Andes. I spotted it on fancy menus in Lima hotels. It came to seem like a challenge

Come on, coward, it taunted me. You say you like to "live like a local." It's time to eat like one.
I do like to live like a local on the road. I'll happily rent an apartment, stumble through an unfamiliar language, wander the back streets of neighbourhoods far off the beaten path. But when it comes to food, I'm as unadventurous as a six-year-old.

And cuy--the Peruvian term for guinea pig--definitely challenged my self-imposed boundaries.

I told myself I was being a hypocrite. After all, I don't have a problem with eating chicken, lamb, beef or fish. Animals are animals, right?

But no matter how I tried to psych myself up, when it came time to order, I'd usually choose something safe, like lomo saltado (stir-fried beef).

What finally convinced me was the lure of cold, hard cash. An editor back in Canada had offered to pay me to write a story about cuy. So in a bistro in Huacho, I took a deep breath and ordered cuy. I was so flustered, I forgot to ask how the dish would be served. In the back of my mind, I was thinking everything would be chopped up and slathered in a thick sauce, like some sort of Peruvian take on curry or gumbo.

My stomach dropped when my plate arrived. Here's what I saw.

It had teeth. It had claws. It looked like a meal that could bite me back.

When I finally picked up my fork, I found the meat surprisingly bland, like overcooked pork. That didn't help, though, as you can see from my expression.


I managed just three bites before gratefully accepting my companion’s offer to trade lunches.

For a less drastic taste of Peru, I’d recommend ceviche (marinated fish) or chicha (a slightly alcoholic beverage made from corn and fruit juice). Save your bravery for the winding, potholed mountain roads, where many drivers think speed limits, signals and lanes are for sissies.

P.S.: My Aeroplan Arrival magazine article about cuy isn't available online, but you can read my short guide to Peru for the same magazine.

Disclosure: I travelled to Peru courtesy of Peru Tourism.

Voluntourism and "aliens" in Peru

Courtesy of WorldNomads.com, an Aussie travel insurance and travel services company, comes this great 25-minute documentary about a volunteer project to build a bridge and a water faucet in the village of Qelqanqa in the Peruvian Andes, southeast of Lima.

A page on the WorldNomads site provides more details on the project. The trip was organized by World Expeditions, which runs Community Project Travel trips in a number of countries. (It's running a trip to a different Peruvian village in 2009.)

While Qelqanqa is far from the regions of Peru I visited earlier this month, many things seemed familiar. There's footage of villagers preparing a pachamanca feast, and shots of mountaintops wreathed in mist. And a comment from one of the volunteers rang true: she thought the travellers must look "like aliens" to the Quechua people. 

That reminded me of a scene I witnessed just outside Lima, the day before I left. An itinerant farm family had set up camp for the season at the base of a mountain. Their rough tent was covered with a couple of tarps. Our guide told us that they had likely hiked here for days from higher ground, to find grazing land for their animals. 

Overhead, paragliders dotted the skies. Their nylon chutes were almost as incongruous with the campsite as were the goggles and space-age clothes of the mountain bikers who zoomed regularly along a dirt track just beyond the tent. 

Aliens, indeed.

Glimpsing village life in Peru

As the sun came up, I peeped through the window of our guest house onto a timeless vista: fields of potatoes and other crops, rimmed by hills and mountains. In the distance, a farmer was already at work behind a horse-drawn plow. In the village of Huamacchuco in the Peruvian Andes, many people wake and sleep with the sun; without night-time distractions such as television, the Internet or movie theatres, that makes perfect sense.

It's hard to get more than a glimpse into a country's way of life on a week-long trip. But if you're heading to the Ancash region of Peru, I can't think of a better way to try than to stay in the Comunidad Campesina Unidos Venceremos, a small community of Quechua families in Huamacchuco. Together, they maintain five purpose-built guest houses and offer hospitality ranging from pachamanca (a traditional feast cooked over heated stones buried in the ground) to impromptu dance sessions to local music.

We spent a little less than a day in the community, but it was a highlight of my visit to Peru earlier this month. When people ask, "How was your trip?" I inevitably start telling tales of Huamacchuco: of sampling chicha (a beverage made from corn, lemon juice and cinnamon), visiting the tiny school (where the kids eagerly sang a few Quechua songs for us) and trying to engage the reserved village women in conversation, despite some language barriers (most conversations involved hand signals or simultaneous translation from our guide, who spoke Spanish, Quechua and English).

While unfailingly friendly and welcoming, our hosts had some unspoken rules. Despite our curiosity to see the inside of one of their homes, they kindly but firmly limited conversations to doorways, courtyards and public spaces. Perhaps that was just a coincidence, but I suspect it was an effort to maintain a modicum of privacy. Fair enough. We were there as guests and their homes are not museums. I'm glad they felt free to set limits. Once the visitors start calling all the shots, any cultural tourism project can quickly degrade into a soulless theme park.

Overnight stays with the community, which include all meals, activities and accommodation, cost US$16 to US$27 per night, depending on the size of your group and the length of your stay. To book, contact the Yachaqui Wayi Responsible Tourism Centre in Huaraz, Peru. The centre also has a comprehensive webpage with further information on Huamacchuco. The Mountain Institute, a U.S.-based organization devoted to supporting traditional mountain cultures and environments around the world, is one of the project's sponsors.