How To Make an Idiot of Yourself In a Peruvian Restaurant

For Kippy. I'm sorry.

"Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down." - Charles F. Kettering

Have you ever been so happy it feels like your heart is going to explode? When I finally ventured out to explore Cusco for the first time, I walked right into a booming festival. At first it didn't occur to me that the echoes of panpipes and drums might actually be coming from somewhere. It seemed like natural background music for the cobbled streets of the ancient capital city of the Incas. I followed the sound casually, letting it guide me toward Plaza de Armas, only vaguely aware of the faint roar of crowds. The main square was overflowing with hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies, in equal parts foreign and native. They were clustered around sectioned-off blocks of road where younger Peruvians in brightly-coloured and feathered costumes were twirling around each other to the deafening music which could only make one think of the Andes.

I'd felt robbed when I slept through my first day in Cusco. Now, struck hard by how impossibly lucky I was, my heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. Synced by the drums, it pounded to the point of actually moving my skin, like a cartoon. Granted this could have had as much to do with the altitude as it did with my excitement. The full effects of Cusco's elevation wouldn't hit me until the following day, when I would remain in the hostel, incapacitated by nauseating wooziness and the splitting of an oxygen-starved brain. Your body will adjust, locals and guidebooks assure you, but in the meantime it feels like you're suffocating. I spent days chain-drinking coca tea, trying to ease my breathing so it no longer sounded like something out of a horror movie. The lightheadedness made me feel always on the verge of passing out. Walking up a hill, I was afraid of suffering cardiac arrest. There's a reason some hotels here pump pure oxygen into the rooms.

Cusco is a city of extreme contrasts, a point which was archetypically illustrated by the fiesta in Plaza de Armas. It was Cusco's Jubilee Month, when local school children performed traditional costumed dances to represent their institutions, and the entire city gathered to watch.Tourists in backpacks and khaki shorts sat next to leather-skinned natives in bright red mantas and top hats on the steps of Spanish colonial cathedrals. Roman Catholic icons hung in shop windows adjacent divination relics of the Incan pantheon. The weathered old women selling homemade papa rellenas in the street thumbed the screens of their iPhones with fingers that were chapped from life in the mountains.

Even the weather here has no middle ground. The temperature dipped so low my first night that I asked for a heater in my room, and went out the following morning layered in long underwear, a sweater and winter jacket. By midday, the equatorial sun had tourists stripping down to tank tops. In late afternoon, without a cloud in sight, the skies let loose a mystifying torrential downpour. Cusco experienced all seasons in one day. I was glad I'd packed accordingly.

Surrounded by music and colour and food and everything I loved about a culture, I loitered in the square and its surrounding side streets for as long as my lungs would tolerate, cheerfully fielding offers - most from children trying to feed their families - for hot stone massages or Peruvian artwork. "No, gracias," I chirped over and over, the grin on my lips immovable no matter how many times I was asked if I'd already booked a Sacred Valley tour. I never wanted to leave this place, and nothing was going to convince me otherwise.

Having eaten breakfast at five-thirty, I was getting hungry. It was too early for lunch so I bought a warm, dulce-de-leche-filled churro from the churro lady for one sole (about 30 cents). Standing on a street corner hawking her pastries from a cloth-lined basket, she seemed only too happy to have my business, and told me in Spanish that she had a bakery just down the street.

I browsed restaurant menus for a while, trying to decide what I wanted to eat first. Finally, I settled on Lomo Saltado. Considered by some to be Peru's national dish, the recipe is hardly Peruvian - beef strips stir-fried with peppers, onions and soy sauce, with the endearingly kooky addition of both french fries and white rice. It supposedly originated as part of the chifa tradition, the Chinese cuisine of Peru. The fries are probably a result of the four thousand potato varieties cultivated here, and the rice of Asian influence.

I found an artist's cafe with moderate prices and the option of Saltado made with alpaca instead of beef. I'd yet to try alpaca, and this seemed like a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. To drink I ordered chicha morada, an unfermented Peruvian beverage made from purple corn and usually lemon, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves or other flavourings. After one sip, I decided it would be my go-to drink in Peru.

Alpaca is leaner than beef, with a texture closer to pork tenderloin, in my opinion, but way more delicious. Tender and almost sweet, alpaca meat was one of the oldest food sources in Incan and pre-Incan civilizations. It's the only mammal to produce elliptical-shaped red blood cells, designed by nature to ensure highly-oxygenated blood for extreme conditions and high altitudes. Alpaca is still considered one of the healthiest and most flavourful meats in the world.

Not quite ready to go back to my room, I stopped in a bakeshop for a slice of tres leches cake. Pretty much exclusively available in Central and South America, it was near the top of the list of my all-time favourite desserts.

Walking back, I turned a street corner and found myself abruptly face-to-face with an alpaca. At least, I'm ninety-nine percent sure it was an alpaca. I'm not well-versed on the difference between alpacas and llamas but I think llamas are bigger. There were three black-haired ladies in the traditional striped mantas (brightly-coloured wraps they sling over their shoulders or use to fasten baskets to their backs) sitting on the front steps of the national bank. With them they had two alpacas and a lamb that looked as though it couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old.

I didn't notice the lamb until I circled around behind the convey and almost stepped on it, curled up against a marble pillar with its matchstick legs folded under its tiny body. Melting inside, I dug out my iPad and snapped a picture. Suddenly one of the ladies was inches from my face. She looked mad. I didn't understand all of the Spanish she doled out, but I caught the words "no gratis". Not free. Uh oh. In the days that followed I would come to understand that these women with their exotic petting zoos occupying alleyways and street corners were not charming photo-ops of local culture. They charged for pictures.

I pretended not to understand until the young woman - she looked several years younger than I - rubbed her thumb and index finger together and said, very clearly, "Money!"

I apologized and said I didn't have any cash on me (I did) and showed her as I deleted the photo off my iPad (I didn't). I then continued on my way, lesson learned.

When I went out again the following morning, the festival was still going on. It seemed to be a multi-day - maybe even a multi-week - event. I decided to make an occasion of it. Wandering into the corner of the square where most of the street carts were clustered, I bought a plastic baggie of chicharrones (fried pork rinds) and dried corn from one of the venders, and settled in to watch the dancing.

I know what you're thinking, but street food has suffered an undeserved bad rap in years past which it is only now beginning to recover from. Besides the fact that it's homemade and therefore beats the quality of industrial-produced, frozen restaurant food ten-fold, it's a much more authentic way to sample local flavours. Not to mention cheaper. The chicharrones I bought cost only two soles (less than a dollar). I'd seen the same thing on a restaurant menu yesterday for thirty soles, and they probably weren't even fresh. These were still warm and crispy from the oil they were cooked in. As for the question of sanitation, I think the hoards of locals feasting from the carts on a daily basis pretty much settle the matter. As Anthony Bourdain says, these people don't stay in business by poisoning their neighbours.

The chicharrones were so light and salty and crispy it depressed me. I'd had them once before at an El Salvadorian restaurant back home, and they were bland, tough and virtually inedible. Nothing like this. Something told me this, like the tree-ripened bananas and freshly-ground hot cocoa, was something you just couldn't find in Canada.

Still riding the crest of a festive mood, I approached one of the ladies with the big plastic buckets of homemade chicha. I chose one made from quinoa instead of corn this time and gave the lady her one sole for another baggie, which she filled using a plastic measuring cup made for pet food or laundry detergent, and tied off with a straw sticking out of the top like a periscope. I thanked her and returned to the parade. Sipping my chicha and enjoying the festivities, I suddenly noticed the venders putting the lids back on their buckets and hastily slinking away, melting into the crowd without a trace. Strange, I thought. I wondered if perhaps they only served until a certain time, or if they were all going home for lunch and then coming back in the afternoon. In less than a minute there was only one left, and she was talking to two police officers who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Or rather, they were doing the talking, pointing to the half-closed bucket and gesturing questioningly.

I froze. It had never occurred to me that selling chicha (and probably drinking it in public) might be illegal. That was twice since getting here that I'd committed a felony. Hardly interested in finding out what Peruvian jails were like, I dropped my baggie discreetly in a nearby trashcan and went in search of lunch.

I knew I wanted to try ceviche while I was here. As much an advocate as I am for street food, it was hot at this particular moment and I thought raw fish was probably best consumed in a restaurant setting, just to be safe.

In case you've ever wondered, here's how to make a complete idiot of yourself in a Peruvian restaurant: I ordered the combination special of ceviche and a Pisco Sour. The waiter brought cheese, a segment of corncob with those ginormous Fred-Flintstone kernels, and two small ramekins of spicy sweet potato puree and something I hoped wasn't ceviche. I took a spoonful. It certainly tasted like ceviche, with assertive notes of chiles and citrus, but it looked more like salsa. I didn't see any fish, and there was only about a quarter cup of it.

Well, I told myself, it WAS listed on the menu as an appetizer, and I'd thought this place looked overpriced. Serves me right for coming to an upscale restaurant rather than going to one of the many street carts for an authentic ceviche experience.

I ate the corn and the cheese first, slowly, waiting to see if perhaps something else was coming. Finally, I gave up and moved on to the puree and salsa-ceviche. It was tasty. I had to give them that. But it wasn't real ceviche. At least not as I knew it. That's when the waiter reappeared with a huge fish-shaped plate piled high with slices of marinated mackerel, roasted sweet potatoes and more of the dried corn I'd had that morning with my chicharrones. I shared a good laugh at myself with the waiter. I'd been eating condiments.

I had one more day to explore Cusco before I set out on a multi-day trek to Machu Picchu on horseback. I knew I had to spend at least some of it packing. I also needed to get to an ATM and find a pair of gloves. Stupidly, I'd packed half chaps but hadn't had the forethought to bring riding gloves. I found a handmade pair in a market stall for five soles. They weren't made of indestructible leather, but they would keep blisters and sun and chills off my hands for a week.

I lingered on the cathedral steps for a few minutes after that, watching bundles of balloons float up in front of the baroque domes and bell towers of the adjacent church, all against a backdrop of the handsome wildness of the mountains. The shadows of the clouds looked sharper in this stark sunlight. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? That intuitive voice inside me questioned. Are you glad you came? In that moment I felt luckier than words can express. Or perhaps blessed is a better word. I thought again about how South America was my turf, how I looked out at the vibrant colours and the wilderness without a shred of fear. There was something about the magical ancientness - of this high mountain city especially - that made my blood sing.

I pulled myself away to take care of one last order of business. It was something I'd had the chance to do during my time in Ecuador and didn't, and regretted passing up ever since. Time to set the record straight.

I stumbled upon Victor-Victoria, a small, family-run cafe, again by sheer dumb luck. I was on my way back from a top TripAdvisor-recommended restaurant, which I opted to bypass on account of the menu prices. I decided on a whim to take a side street to avoid the chaos in the main square, and there it was: modest tables hosting only local patrons and a hand-written chalkboard menu. On it: Cuy al Horno for forty soles.

I'd combed the city, both online and on foot, for the best place to try roasted guinea pig. Another of Peru's national dishes, it was generally a special-occasion feast for natives, and one of the most expensive items a diner could order, kind of like springing for the 16-oz. prime rib at the Keg. The standard price on most menus was sixty soles. The TripAdvisor recommendation had it for sixty-five. The number one rule for getting quality food at low prices? Get out of tourist territory. Look for back-street cafes bursting at the seems with locals. That's where the good food is. I can sense before I even sit down when I'm going to have a great meal in a restaurant. This place was perfect.

The traditional platter came with half a cuy (I knew they were the sacred food of the Andes - ancient Incan emperors have been found entombed with the little creatures - but I couldn't imagine eating a whole one), homemade stuffed chiles, roasted potatoes, corn on the cob, bread and a bottomless salad bar. It was the Peruvian answer to Thanksgiving dinner.

Eating cuy is not just a meal. It's an experience. Cuy takes a long time to cook, and even longer to eat. While I waited I ordered a 'Coca Sour', a cocktail made with the ubiquitous liquor, Pisco and concentrated coca tea, again looking for some relief from the feeling that I could die of a brain aneurysm at any moment. It wasn't until the waitress walked away that I wondered about the effects of mixing alkaloids with alcohol.

I heard the hammering of a meat cleaver in the nearby kitchen and tried not to think about what was happening just beyond my line of sight. There's no fooling yourself when cuy arrives on a plate in front of you. It looks...like roasted guinea pig. The waitress didn't speak English but I understood when she explained that the traditional way to eat cuy was with your hands. She mimed dismembering the tiny paws and haunches and tearing into them with her teeth like a drumstick. It didn't take me long to figure out there was really no other way of doing it. In a last-ditch attempt to be ladylike (as if that hadn't gone out the window the moment I ordered up a household pet on a spit-roast), I tried with my knife and fork first. The skin, golden-brown like a flawlessly-roasted chicken, was impenetrable. I stared at the little body for a long minute, ate a few bites of potato and corn. I'd had a pet guinea pig as a child, and was trying very hard not to think about my beloved Kippy. Peruvians have been eating this for thousands of years, I reminded myself. It's a staple of the Andean diet. Still, I wasn't sure anymore I wanted this particular feather in my hat. Then my stomach growled.

I managed to get one of the forelegs off first. The shoulder meat came with it, looking for all the world like dark meat chicken. I tried a bite. It tasted for all the world like dark meat chicken. Relieved, I went for the ribs next, then the hind legs. Just like that, I became a beast. I tore my childhood pet limb-from-limb with my bare hands.

By the time I was finished, my plate looked like the scene of a bloody massacre. Only the bones and leathery skin remained. And the head. I hadn't touched the head. The tiny, crispy ears and long teeth were too much for me. Flipping the guinea pig over to its cleaved underside, I saw the brain and eyeball were still intact. All at once it didn't taste like chicken anymore. The stuffed chile peppers were actually my favourite thing on the plate - spicy, breaded and panfried like chile rellenos with a flavourful filling of ground meat, egg, vegetables, spices and dried fruit (raisins, I think).

So I did it. I ate cuy, the sacred food of the Andes. And with that, I was ready to embark on the pinnacle of my spiritual pilgrimage, the quintessence of earthly extremes, and the quest soul-searches the world over have taken - as cheesy as it sounds - for enlightenment. I fell asleep that night to the sound of fireworks as the festival finally drew to a close. Tomorrow the real adventure begins.