I actually ate one of these little guys...damn it.

Alex Garcia invited me for lunch. Of course I accepted. We drove about 30 minutes away from Guaranda to a little thatch roof bar. His wife got out of the car, ran up to the cook and ordered four bowls of chicken soup, and a cuy (guinea pig, as in these cute little bastards). I said that I wouldn’t eat these critters. Having visited two different cuy farms, and my affection for cute and cuddly creatures, I was really set on avoiding this local cuisine. But, as Alex's wife already ordered it, and it was coming to the table one way or another, I couldn't break rule number one on the road: 'eat whatever is given to you, at all costs, medical, ethical, or otherwise.'

First bite into this little guy was enough to end it right there. I couldn't get their little faces out of my head. I also remembered just how adorable they are when you approach the pen, and they're piling on top of each other, huddling with fear in the hope that they'll avoid the destiny of the plate.

It's a very greasy meat, and the skin is not something that you can ignore. Once you crack the legs apart you mistake this little bugger for a rat. But the taste of the BBQ overtakes the mental blockage, and then it starts to taste good. Very good. I was ready for more, but then Alex's wife flagged down the mesera, and said 'senora, la cabeza por favor.' I jumped out of my seat. The head!! They're going to head the bloody head??? Sure enough a little head with teeth and eyes still in it showed up. I said that I was full. Fortunately, even here the head is an admitted acquired taste, and I was let off the hook.

I've been served a lot of food lately. Juan Alberto, and his family fed me till I nearly burst. All I could do in return was cook them a pasta dinner one night, which was enjoyed by all.

When I visited the community of Paltabomba I was offered Ecuadorian tortillas (much closer to a pancake then what North America considers to be a tortilla). These are very tasty, but they are loaded with un pasteurized cheese, and the hygiene, as always in poor places, is questionable. But yet, there I was, in the back yard among chickens, dogs and children dwarfed from hunger, and mama offers me a giant plate of tortillas that I can hardly finish. I finished every bite, and the consequence was that more tortillas appeared. Very delicious, but it boggles the mind that I am being fed to the point of voluptuousness, while there is a 4 year old kid hanging on to my leg and he looks more like 2.

It is challenging to comprehend the geography of food, that sacred commodity, especially in the south. I came down here saying that cuy was off the diet, figuring that it was against my morals to eat something so cute. But last Monday, in a gated hacienda, complete with armed guards and servants, I was offered a delicious meal of beef wrapped in bacon. There was salad, fruit, dessert and mineral water. I didn't seem to have a moral objection to that, despite the fact that on the other side of that wall there are people living, just hundreds of meters away, without ever knowing the taste of beef, bacon, milk, or anything else much past a steady diet of corn and the occasional cuy.
I think that one's ethics takes a greater beating with the beef dinner than with the little guinea pig. There's really little difference between that wonderful hospitality given at the hacienda, the cuy shack, and the rural hovel. It's the advantage of being a visitor with an interest in the country and the community. People want to feed you to their best of their ability. But you can't ignore the fact that these abilities are so dangerously separated. Now I'm stuck with the question as to why that generosity stops at the walled gate, and makes people, and dogs together, battle for the scraps that sometimes fall from the table.