Friday, November 12, 2004

Boo's Dead

IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH: MORE PICTURES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO MY ALBUM!!
Check them out.

After my last post yesterday the group went out together for a meal, which enabled me to tick off another animal from my list of culinary victims. I tried out a local Peruvian speciality called cuy, or what we call: guinea pig. It looked a bit strange at first as it was laid out spread-eagled on the plate (or as our tour leader Carlos described it, "looks just like road-kill", but I'll let you decide for yourselves: see the picture below), but once you start ripping it apart you soon lose all inhibitions. Personally I think it tasted like chicken thighs but others likened it more to duck, but either way it was very tasty, and the skin as well was particularly yummy (and chewy). So if any of you have any of the little critters at home and are feeling rather bored with them now you know what you can do (and I suppose it could be done for any rodent).



We then left early in the morning to travel to the Colca canyon (allegedly the deepest canyon in the world, and twice as deep as the Grand canyon) so that we could hopefully get a chance to see the second biggest flying bird in the world (with a wingspan reaching 3m): the Andean condor. We got to the lookout point at 9am and after an hour got a few fleeting glimpses of the majestic bird (when looking at them from above adult condors have spectacular black and white markings on their wings), with one bird coming to within 30m of us. We then took a short walk along the edge of the canyon and within the space of 20mins we got to see several groups of 3-5 condors wheeling next to us and overhead and sometimes only 5m away. It was absolutely breathtaking, and definitely something I will remember for the rest of my life.

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