Gringo Domingo 

In America, we have Sunday Funday.  In Thailand, there is Sanuk Sanuk, a Thai word meaning ´fun´ that is said twice for the fun of it. When I asked Peruvians what they called Sunday, the common response was ´Dia de la Familia´... Day of the Family. That´s fine and good, but that won´t capture the mood of what is being accomplished with my posse.  I came up with Gringo Domingo - a Sunday for us gringos to pass the day.

For the first installment of Gringo Domingo, my roommate and I hosted a potluck gathering at our place. I made some gumbo with chicken and chorizo (andoullie is not something to be found here). Also I was at a grocery store that had many many Peruvian beers that could not be found at any bars that I´ve been to so far.

Basically, only Cusqueña and Pilsen can be found anywhere. I was able to find the third bottle, Tres Cruces, at one restaurant, but that was rare.  It is marginally better than all the other beers.  Franca was started by an Austrian brewery, but was recently bought out by Peruvians.  The fourth beer- Ciencianos, is actually the name of the local futball team.  All in all, the beers taste the same - they are all pilsners, with the exception of the Cusqueña at the end with the silver label. That is a wheat beer, but is only seasonal and I can´t find it since I purchased that one bottle.  It was actually good, maybe because it isn´t a pilsner.

Last Domingo, we went out to a Cuy Festival in the town of Cachimayo- just 15km northwest of Cusco.  Cuy is a gineau pig. I´ve had it before in Lima, but it was from a fancy restuarant and not served in the traditional Peruvian way - chopped in four or six pieces and served from head to tail on a plate.  Actually, since this was a festival, it was piled onto a styrofoam plate/tray, whatever was convenient.

Also included was a sausage with the organs and tiny diced potatoes and onions. I kinda liked it for a few bites, but the more I thought about what I was eating, the less interested I became.

I have to say again, cuy tastes like chicken and I don´t think it´s worth the sacrifice. The effort-to-meat ratio is really low. In fact, the only real areas of meat are in the hind legs and a little along the backside. There is a small chunk on each cheek, but really, one person can eat a whole cuy and still be hungry. It was served with potatoes and either a pile of spaghetti or a chili relleno, the latter was actually quite good at the one place we ate at. The relleno was stuffed with stewed carrots, onions, diced potatoes and cheese.The pepper itself was slightly hot and spicy.

It being a festival, there was also live music.  The first band seemed to play for three hours and was traditional Peruvian music of three dudes with guitars and singing.  The next two bands had more energy and dancers in traditional clothing (check out what the men on stage right are wearing - I need to find those shirts!) and created a great mood as the sun went down.

We also made some new friends. The three of us gringos were just drinking beer and watching the stage when a group of people sat next to us, also drinking beer. It turns out that one woman and her children hired a cab driver to take them from Cusco to Cachimayo for this. After a few hours, we were sharing beer and trading stories.  They were kind enough to take us back to Cusco, which was a dicey situation otherwise. (It was Mothers Day holiday and everyone was traveling around the region.) The taxi driver we hired to get to Cachimayo was gonna gouge us to wait and take us back to Cusco.  We decided against that and was going to take a chance of standing on the side of the road and hope for a bus to take us back to the City.  Shweeeew!