The Americas Part 1

Guinea pigs. I remember as a child a friend of mine had one of these animals. Actually, he was less of a friend and more of an assoiciate. Actually, he was less of an associate and more of an enemy. He used to pick his nose and then wipe bogies on my Star Wars figures.
Why am I mentioning this? Well, I´m in Peru at the moment and I have finally enacted my revenge, in a roundabout way, by eating his pet´s South American cousin. Yum yum, the ´cuy´as it´s called here is a bit of a delicacy and I have to say it was rather nice. Tastes a little like dolphin.

In between meals I´ve managed to climb up to Machupicchu, fly over the mysterious Nazca lines - big drawings of various animals in the middle of the desert, used apparently as an astrological chart, but the inclusion of an astronaut looking like an alien implies to me that something extraterrestrial happened here, as far as I´m aware astronauts were a 20th Century invention, rather than something from 300BC - and I´ve visited the people of the Uros, who live on floating islands in Lake Titikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world.

Talking of height it´s pretty difficult working out mathematical equations at 3000 metres above sea level, so I´ve decided not to. Instead I´ve been contemplating the fact that just over a week ago I was on the beach at Cuba, and now I´m 3000 metres above that. And I´m pleased. I love beaches, I just don´t like Cuba. It was a spur of a moment thing. I only wanted to go to be there for when Castro died, but seeing as, at the time of writing, he is still alive, I missed the big event. Cuba is dirty, expensive and people only like you if money is passing from your pocket to theirs.
Mexico was a different story, which was the first port of call on this Central and South American stint. The people there were awesome and the tequilla drinkable. I also ate the worm, and to kill an urban myth, you do not hallucinate. And that´s exactly what I told the talking cactus.
Next stop is Bolivia. They don´t eat guinea pigs but there are people throwing missiles and setting cars alight in the streets of La Paz, according to my guidebook, so I´m looking forward to that.