THE THINGS YOU EAT

Should I be proud of the variety of God’s creatures I have devoured in the name of ‘’experience”? Do I really impress folks at dinner parties regaling tales of consuming the inconsumable? Do I even go to ‘dinner parities’?

So many questions yet so few answers, for I care not. Life is for the living; unless of course you were a guinea pig in Peru last weekend in which case your life was for 32 Peruvian soles (around 10 Aussie bucks). Kebabs in Turkey, fondue in Switzerland, dogs in Vietnam and so it is with small rodents here in Peru. The question is not ‘if’ you want some, but ‘how’. We tried ours the traditional way, whole, fried and complete with all the bits and pieces it was using up until it had its very last bath. There are some photos here on the site that for those of you reading after breakfast might be interested in. I put them up on the facebook site but got very few responses, the wife hinting that my humour would only appeal to a select few, clearly she was referring to the type of people who would be reading this blog!

And it tasted like ……. dare I say it? Chicken. Albeit with a fishy flavour. Take that phrase as you will. It is kind of like eating the quail version of, well, a bigger quail. But the fun part was the, how shall I say, ancillary, bits. Those little buggers have some awesomely grotesque fangs but also the cutest little claws, perfect back scratchers for a leprechaun! However at the end of the day you are what you eat and they did taste like what would have been left on the floor after all the diners had paid and gone home!

But I digress…..

I left you hanging at the end of the last post with us being stranded at the airport here in Arequipa, our host and language school coordinator most unfortunately forgetting about our arrival. And so my first Spanish vocabulary became ‘lo siento’ or ‘I’m sorry’ as I heard this statement several times on the cab ride to her house.

Cut to the present and three weeks later I can happily add to this phrase with more than just ‘uno mas cerveza por favor’. The language learning caper is tougher than it was when I learnt Japanese at the tender age of 15. A few hangovers have passed under the paracetamol bridge since then and it’s not such a situation of flexing the grey matter, but controlling it’s wobble. Last month if you had have said ‘tense’ I might have tried something with my sphincter.

We have 3 more weeks here at the school before its time to cut loose and let more Peruvians witness the murder of their language. We have a date with our bike to keep, the thing now however is that I have the very strong feeling that we are going to be stood up at the altar. Our shipping agent, you might remember his pseudo name was Peter, has just sent me an email, ‘sorry mate, ship was delayed in Singapore, will try to let you know when it arrives’. It might have been a better idea to break it into little bits and put them in bottles!

Cross your fingers for the Gods of shipping, this blog about a motorbike around the world seems to be missing something ………

The view from our room, awesome mountains for a couple of Aussies

Arequipa sights

Books from the 14th C

Arequipa sights

Arequipa sights