hen I was a kid, spending my summers in Michigan, my cousins had a guinea pig. A big, fat thing with stiff brown-and-white fur and curious whiskers, always stinking up the basement with its black pellet poops and the cedar intended to cover the smell. I can't say I had much of an attachment to the guy, but it was fun to watch him waddle and sniff his way around the room. In Dallas, my brother and I went through a succession of hamsters -- soft, squishable critters that lasted about as long as a disposable razor. But my cousins' guinea pig hung in there. He was a tough motherfucker.

He wouldn't last long in South America. In Ecuador and Peru, guinea pig is a delicacy, called "cuy" and pronounced "kwee." They sell it in the best restaurants, and they sell it on the street corners, and it always looks the same. It's a bloody, terrifying sight, skewered whole on a metal spit and roasted over an open flame. Its tail and ears and nose are still intact, its face is in this nasty, teeth-baring snarl, a snarl that seems to be saying: "I´m a very bad guinea pig, and I´m going to EAT YOU!" Or maybe it's saying: "You stupid fuck, this is hot! What are you doing, anyway? Don't you know I'm a GUINEA PIG?!" The guinea pig probably never saw it coming. I imagine this uprising among the guinea pigs, all scrambling to get to the United States, where they know how to treat their guinea pigs. I imagine them standing in long lines, with protest signs, pulling all their strings to get the hell out of the country.

I've eaten weird things here. I've eaten llama that was soaked in blood, and I have eaten cheese that tasted like curd, and I have eaten pizza covered with weird corn and corn covered with weird cheese and I have even -- believe it or not -- I have even eaten mushrooms. And I have gotten enough gas to propel me back home if I wanted to go, and that is okay. That is traveling. But little guinea pig, little guinea pig, I will never eat you. I'd rather eat roasted slug.

The weird thing is how proud the Ecuadorians and Peruvians are of their cuy. I feel like I just caught the whole country masturbating, and they should blush a little. But in Peru, even Christ loved him some cuy! In the Cathedral in the town square, there is a wall-size painting of the Last Supper. It's similar to Leonardo daVinci´s, except for one small detail. In front of Christ, there is a plate. And on that plate, you know what there is? That's right. A guinea pig, twisted on its back, its pink claws bent up in the air.