Roast Guinea Pig.....(slurp!)

Several of the most spectacular Inca sites have been identified as royal estates of Pachacuti.[the inca title for the man who had created the empire and was the son of the sun Inti]. They lie in a 100km stretch of the Urubamba drainage between Pisac and Machu Picchu also called the Sacred Valley of the incas.


We took a bus to Pisac which lies about 30km north from Cuzco. The slopes leading down to the settlement of Pisac are graced with splendid terraces that cascade hundreds of metres down slope. The ravines to the west are filled with scores of looted tombs, a mute witness to the pillaging of the empire. The bustling sunday weekly market had kicked life into Pisac early that morning and its center was swamped with every form of craft imaginable – llama finger-puppets, panpipes and various people lined up with dressed up alpacas and vicunas that you could take a picture with to send home.

More interesting for me however, was the varieties of food they had displayed inside the market. [What is a market for if not for food I ask you?] We found enclosures where guinea pigs were raised. The small edible animal (called Cuy) is considered a delicacy and is served at special occasions and ceremonies. (In the cathedral in the main square in Cusco is a large painting of the Last supper that was commissioned by the Spanish and painted by an Andean artist. It shows a roasted guinea pig on the table with a small jug of Pisco Sour – a nice Andean touch). We passed up the ‘Cuy’ but did try empanada and boiled Quechua corn that was delicious. There were huge sacks displaying different varieties of tubers such as potato, ulluco, talwi, oca and mashwa. It’s hard to imagine that the potato and tomatoes were a discovery of the ‘New world’. What would our cooking be without them?

From Pisac we proceeded on to Ollayntaytambo, 40km downriver and the best surviving example of Inca city planning with narrow cobblestone streets that have been constantly inhabited since the 13th century. Canals running through the streets function to this day providing fresh water and carrying away affluent. The stone at the site was quarried 6kms upstream high above the opposite bank of the Urubamba. Climbing up the steep terraces to the Temple of the sun we could see examples of unfinished stonework that gave us an idea of the work that must have gone into making the finished structures.