 | Along the Andes: Part 6 (Northern Altiplano) Part 6 of 16 in the "Busco Gusto: Along the Andes" series (www.stinkyfeetproject.org). A journey through the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands and history; Lake Titicaca and the ancient city of Tiahuanaco and the modern streets of La Paz. Filmed December 2005. |
 | The Guinea Pig is the Cuy or Quwi You should know what a Guinea Pig looks like: you know, those little cute and chubby animals that sort of remind us of the hamsters and tailless rats at the same time. But if you were to ask anyone in the Andean region of South America --where these small animals come from- not a single person would know what is a "puerco de Guinea" as it translates into Spanish. That is because the real name of a Guinea Pig is Quwi --in Runasimi language- or Cuy in Spanish. The wrong name was made up when European invaders confused this Andean rodent with a little pig from Guinea. You know, Europeans think they are entitled to name everything according to their way of thinking, therefore the rodent Cuy is considered a pig for most English-speakers in the world, and also it's considered a pet and not a source of food as most Andean people see it. Because I grew up in the Andes of Peru, I have tasted the Cuy several times. This rodent are not considered pets in Peru, and once cooked it becomes a tasty but small delicacy of similar taste of chicken or maybe rabbit. Of course the Cuy flavor may depend on how it has been richly seasoned, roasted on the grill, deep fried or boiled in stoned-ovens. It also depends on what region it's been cooked, served with regional sauces and vegetables from specific parts of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, and northern Argentina and Chile, and other countries where Native Quechua people have migrated, including the US hey, eaten Cuy in Virginia and Maryland, close to Washington, DC where Andean immigrants raised them to cook them. Few days ago, the Cuyes from Peru made the news around the Anglo-speaking world, as people of the coastal town of Huacho celebrated a food festival where the Cuy was the main and central dish. For people who think that Cuys are pigs and pets, this news seemed particularly curious and even disgusting. Personally I think a well cooked Cuy is delicious, depending on how is being made, and presented. I prefer to eat it without the feet and head, but for many Andean people, those are some of the most exquisite parts to enjoy. My Cuyes Over a year ago, a friend of mine here in Washington, DC gave me a couple of Cuyes to raise them as pets. Although they were born and raised in the US (no need to report them to ICE), but I decided to name them with Peruvian names: Rumi (stone in Runasimi language) and Chibolo (little boy in Peruvian Spanish). They never got along, so I had to get rid of one. So far I've been able to keep only Chibolo, even though he is the most mischievous and loud Cuy I've ever seeing. And Rumi ended up in the kitchen of a Bolivian America family, friends of mine who appreciated the gift of course. Now, here is a video I made of both Cuyes few months ago. |
 | documentary on the andes Short documentary about the Andes. The Andes is South America's longest mountain range, forming a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. It is over 7,000 km (4,400 miles) long, 500 km (300 miles) wide in some parts (widest between 18° to 20°S latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). The Andean range is composed principally of two great ranges, the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Occidental, often separated by a deep intermediate depression, in which arise other chains of minor importance, the chief of which is Chile's Cordillera de la Costa. Other small chains arise on the sides of the great chains. The Cordillera de la Costa starts from the southern extremity of the continent and runs in a northerly direction, parallel with the coast, being broken up at its beginning into a number of islands and afterwards forming the western boundary of the great central valley of Chile. To the north this coastal chain continues in small ridges or isolated hills along the Pacific Ocean as far as Venezuela, always leaving the same valley more or less visible to the west of the western great chain. The mountains extend over seven countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, some of which are known as Andean States. One theory says the name Andes comes from the Quechua word anti, which means "high crest". Another theory says that the name Andes derived from the Spanish word "andén" which means terrace in reference to the cultivation terraces used by the Incas and other related peoples. The Andes mountain range is the highest mountain range outside Asia, with the highest peak, Aconcagua, rising to 6,962 m (22,841 ft) above sea level. The summit of Mount Chimborazo in the Ecuadorean Andes is the point on the Earth's surface most distant from its center, because of the equatorial bulge. The Andes cannot match the Himalayas in height but do so in width and are more than twice as long. The Inca Empire developed in the northern Andes during the 1400s. The Incas formed this civilization through careful and meticulous governmental management. The government sponsored the construction of aqueducts and roads, some of which, like those created by the Romans, are still in existence today. The aqueducts turned the previously scattered Incan tribe into the agricultural and eventually militaristic masters of the region. Devastated by deadly European diseases to which they had no immunity, the Incas were conquered by an army of 180 men led by Pizarro in 1532. One of the few Inca cities the Spanish never found in their conquest was Machu Picchu, which lay hidden on a peak on the edge of the Andes where they descend to the Amazon. The main surviving languages of the Andean peoples are those of the Quechua and Aymara language families. Check my channel for more documentaries. |
 | Ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people certainly used the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting many hundreds of stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade. Little is known of the social or religious use of the site during Inca times. The skeletal remains of ten females to one male had led to the casual assumption that the site may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility. However, subsequent osteological examination of the bones revealed an equal number of male bones, thereby indicating that Machu Picchu was not exclusively a temple or dwelling place of women. One of Machu Picchu's primary functions was that of astronomical observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes and other significant celestial periods. The Intihuatana (also called the Saywa or Sukhanka stone) is designed to hitch the sun at the two equinoxes, not at the solstice (as is stated in some tourist literature and new-age books). At midday on March 21st and September 21st, the sun stands almost directly above the pillar, creating no shadow at all. At this precise moment the sun "sits with all his might upon the pillar" and is for a moment "tied" to the rock. At these periods, the Incas held ceremonies at the stone in which they "tied the sun" to halt its northward movement in the sky. There is also an Intihuatana alignment with the December solstice (the summer solstice of the southern hemisphere), when at sunset the sun sinks behind Pumasillo (the Puma's claw), the most sacred mountain of the western Vilcabamba range, but the shrine itself is primarily equinoctial. Shamanic legends say that when sensitive persons touch their foreheads to the stone, the Intihuatana opens one's vision to the spirit world (the author had such an experience, which is described in detail in Chapter one of Places of Peace and Power, on the web site, www.sacredsites.com). Intihuatana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuatana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuatana stone and its resident spirits remain in their original position. The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse and was abandoned some forty years after the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. Supply lines linking the many Inca social centers were disrupted and the great empire came to an end. The photograph shows the ruins of Machu Picchu in the foreground with the sacred peak of Wayna Picchu towering behind. Partway down the northern side of Wayna Picchu is the so-called "Temple of the Moon" inside a cavern. As with the ruins of Machu Picchu, there is no archaeological or iconographical evidence to substantiate the 'new-age' assumption that this cave was a goddess site. |
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