Those are a few of my favorite things.
Chancho is the word for pig down here. Every one farms pig. I would love to have a pet pig, they are so cool. Except for how much they fart. Pigs are farting machines, and I would know, because I get told over and over that chancho is food (comida) not pet (mascota). I hear this because the dogs won´t let me pet them, but the pigs will. I have found that the pigs love their stomachs to be rubbed. I walk up to a pig, rub its belly, and it drops. The pig basically is totally hypnotized. Then it farts. Clockwork.
When the quechua tell me that chancho is not mascota, I tell them this is how we make our pork sweet in the states. I get mostly funny looks. Now when I walk by some of the pigs, they get ready for me to pet them, and one dropped when I asked if she wanted her belly rubbed.
My next new favorite thing is Cuy. Guinea pig. YUMMY. Really, we had fried cuy on saturday, Linnea even ate hers, and I ate a double portion. The skin is so crispy, and the meat is like the juiciest chicken you can imagine. When I hike, especially for a few days in the mountains, I always crave Kentucky Fried Chicken. Mac and cheese, mashed potatos and extra crispy drumsticks. I think I have found a new food to crave. I just have to get over the sound of the other guinea pigs in the room watching me eat their brother.
Ceviche! A little sketchy to be eating raw fish from the ocean at 11000 feet, but I have developed a taste for this dish, or pile of food in a plastic bag. Wash it down with Guarana soda. Ceviche is kind of like raw sardines and is in a spicy mix of vegetable and corn and beans and seaweed, good stuff.
When I was in Bolivia and Peru 5 years ago, I developed a taste for Mate de Coca. Tea of the Coca leaves. Very good, very mild. There are so many different types of tea here that I have a whole bag full of every medicinal type. Stomach aches, relaxing tea, manzanilla (chamomile), etc. We drink tea and coffee all day.
We also have very fresh coffee beans, which we roast ourselves (by that I mean I watch the quechuan support staff do it) over the fire, and grind by hand. I think I got my heart beat up to the max in about two minutes of grinding the other day, so one of the women took over. Good thing I left my pride in Nicaragua.
