For me, one lure of travel is eating like the locals. Usually delicious and cheap, often surprising and only occasionally revolting, local food connects you with other cultures. If you go to South America and stay in a nice comfy hotel with a modern toilet, and eat at McDonalds, you haven’t really left home. You’ve brought your nicely insulated home with you. Comfort is the enemy of peak experience – it can cripple you.

So I had to try “Cuy.” It was a traditional ceremonial food of the Inca empire, and is now the national dish of Peru, Bolivia and parts of Equador and Columbia. Basically, it’s a kind of guinea pig, or cavy. They have lots of advantages – they reproduce quickly, they’re cheap to raise, and they’re small enough to keep in urban settings.

When plated, mine had a small carrot in its mouth, and looked exactly like a ten-inch skinned rat. It was a pretty nice restaurant, so I used a knife and fork instead of picking it up and gnawing on it as usual. Very bony – there was almost no meat at all.

It tasted like chicken. Duh, right? My stomach hurt for three days afterwards, but that may have been psychological.

Also, Machu Picchu rocks. Wild llamas wander around inside. At its base, the Urubamba River runs fast and wild, colorful birds are everywhere, and the Amazon jungle is just a few miles away.