Week 4
This week’s excursion was at the local zoologico in Cuenca. Here we saw all types of animals. Some I’ve
seen in American zoos, others not. We saw a puma, lions, and Andean mountain
bear, many monkeys, and many birds. We also saw tigrillos or ocelots which came right up to the gate and licked my
friend’s hand. Another strange run-in was with the monkeys. The owners let the
smaller monkeys roam free around the zoo, so they were not afraid at all to
come up to the humans. A member of our group held out a banana to one of the
small monkeys and the monkey proceeded to jump on his back and scream until he
gave it the banana. It stayed on his back until it was good and satisfied with
eating the banana and then it jumped off and went on its merry way. Another
unsanctioned excursion was our trip to eat cuy.
Cuy is a delicacy in Ecuador, which
was strange to us because cuy are
pets in the states. The translation of cuy
in English is guinea pig. The brave majority of the group made a reservation to
a restaurant that served this dish and we all had a quarter cuy to ourselves. It was hard to wrap my
mind around at first, but the meat is actually very rich. Though we all agreed,
one quarter cuy is not nearly enough
for a full meal.
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| Cuy on spits |
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| Kissing the deer |
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| Puma |
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| Tigrillo |
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| At the zoo |
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