Cajas National Park

Cuy on a spit!

The best hat shop in Cuenca

Wendy, Judy, Cindy, Dale, and Alberto

One of the hundreds of Orchids we saw

More orchids!

The produce market in Gualaceo

On Thursday, we traveled to the Cajas National Park up at 14,000 feet and hiked among the mountain peaks.  There are beautiful flowers at that altitude and amazing lakes.  I would definitely recommend it as a must see spot in Ecuador.  After eating fresh trout at a local restaurant, we went back to Cuenca and stopped by the Panama Hat factory and museum.  Panama hats were the largest source of income for Cuenca starting in the 1940’s.  The business grew through the 1960’s and boomed during the construction of the Panama Canal.  If you haven’t already guessed, Panama hats are originally from Ecuador and have been worn by the people of Cuenca ever since the Spanish invaded.  Women traditionally weave the hats from a grass called paja from the mountains.  The hats are then sent to a factory where the edges are finished and the hats are dyed and put in a mold to give them their final shape.  After visiting the factory, some of the group went to visit the famous shop of Alberto Pulla.  He is a mute man who is very outgoing and friendly, and he knows his hats!  For dinner, we went to a local restaurant that prepared four cuyes for our group…mmmm guinea pig!  Most of us liked it and at least, tasted it.

On Friday, we went to Gualaceo to visit a produce market, a meat market, and a shaman’s market.  We also visited the most amazing greenhouse where they are trying to grow the most species of orchids in the world.  The orchids are first grown in bottles for 4 months to 4 years depending on the species.  They are then planted communally in a soil mixture and then separated into individual pots.  Some orchids take 6 years to get their first bloom.  The greenhouse had an amazing assortment of native orchids, non native orchids, and hybrids.   We also visited Chordaleg where they are famous for silver filigree jewelry.  Our dinner was at a hacienda that was owned by sugar cane farmers and later converted into a hotel.  The empanadas de viento were delicious.  In the evening, we caught a flight back to Quito.

Our last day in Quito has been filled with shopping, packing, and one last meal together as a group.  It has been one amazing trip that I will never forget!

The craft market

Calla Lillies at the flower market

Diane and Katie overlooking Cuenca

Luis playing the bass pan pipes

Carvallo Hotel

Ingaprica

Ingapirca sun temple

Mmmmm, torched pigskin!

I taste like Ecuadorian fast food!

Woman weaving a panama hat

Church of the Virgin of the Morning Dew

We took the bus up the Andes on the Pan-American Highway and stopped at a church that was literally built into the moutain.  It was the Church of the Virgin of the Morning Dew and behind the altar you can see the rock of the mountain.  Our next stop was a visit to a panama hat weaver.  She showed us how she weaves natural grass into panama hats.  I was impressed with her patience; it takes an entire day to weave one hat!  Up the road a little ways, we stopped at an Ecuadorian fast food restaurant where they were using a blowtorch to fry pigskin.  It is a very interesting process because they slaughter the pig, but just cook the skin the first day and the rest of the pig stays raw.  They scrap the hair and char off of the skin and then slice it off as people order.  It is served with salsa and mote, steamed corn.  It was crunchy and flavorful, but you feel a little bad looking at the poor piggy. 

We made it to Ingapirca after crossing the continental divide and highest point on the Pan-American highway.  Ingapirca is an Incan town that was built over the same place that the ancient Cañari people had a town.  It was excavated in 1967 after being buried for 400 years.  The city was built in the shape of a puma.  There were many spots where the sun would shine on certain days of the year.  In the temple, there were cutouts for each of the four seasons.  I was amazed by their city planning.  This spot has the only oval shaped building in all of Inca architecture and the city was second in size only to Cusco in Peru.  Amazing.

Yesterday, we went to the Yachana Gourmet Chocolate factory in Quito.  They roast the cacao (chocolate) beans and then crush them into nibs and sweeten them with natural sugar cane syrup.  They then mix the nibs with nuts and fruit in different combinations to make an interesting treat.  It has the crunchy texture of trail mix and the chocolate taste really lingers in your mouth.  They also press the nibs and make an 80% pure baking chocolate.  Yum yum.  In the afternoon, we went to a fair trade cooperative that works with small farms, indigenous people, women, and afro-ecuadorians in the fair trade agricultural and craft markets.  They have a really great philosophy and goal to keep small sustainable farms alive in a very competitive agricultural market. 

Our group had to get up early this morning and be ready at 5:30am to catch a flight to Cuenca.  We arrived before 8:00am, and our guide, Wilson, was there waiting for us.  He took us to our very nice hotel and then around town in a walking tour.  We visited the flower market, cathedral, modern art museum, and the ceramic shop of Eduardo Veda.  Cuenca is a beautiful colonial city that was originally inhabited by the Canari people and then was overtaken by the Incas for a mere 30 years.  The Spanish invaded in 1534 and then ruled until 1822.  Many building still exist from the colonial time.  In 1822, Cuenca gained its independence from the Spanish and joined in the country of Gran Colombia with Colombia, Venezuala and Peru.  This lasted until 1830 when the republic of Ecuador was founded.  We had a delicious three course lunch at a local restaurant and then went to a lookout over the city.  It would be the perfect place if it wasn´t so cold!  Tomorrow, we go to see pre-Incan ruins.

On Wednesday afternoon, we took the canoe to a nearby sandbar to see local families panning for gold. They do this type of work after they are finished with their agricultural obligations. It is hard work, but an income for struggling families. They might get one ounce of gold after an afternoon of work. Juan tied together 7 inner tubes and we floated down the river back to the lodge. It was very refreshing after the afternoon heat. After dinner, we had a campfire and sang songs and told stories. Evan and I played a little guitar and Juan shared songs in Spanish and Shiwiar, his first language. Juan also told stories from his community about mother moon and the Morpho butterfly.

On Thursday we went out on a hike with Juan and two boys from the Yachana Technical High School, Felix and Moeses. This is the ¨lost in the jungle¨story that some of you have been waiting for. We broke up into groups and were supposed to be looking for seeds to make jewelry with. We searched for palm ivory and other semillas. Mary Ellen, Jessie, Cindy and I went off with Felix who was eager to show us the jungle ¨off the beaten path¨. We walked and walked and he kept asking us if we were tired and we told him no. Pretty soon we found a path and he led the way. This was the wrong way in retrospect. We found ourselves way out and he decided to wait for Juan. He whistled a little bit, which is like jungle morse code. Unfortunately, he did not have a very good whistle. I showed him my ¨get over here¨ whistle and he practiced it with little success. After waiting at this one spot for a half an hour we decided to turn back down the trail. We had been out for about 3 hours at this point. We continued to whistle and then out of nowhere Juan appears on the trail. He said he had been running and running trying to find us and that Diane was very nervous. He scolded Felix in Spanish for taking us out so far and not really knowing his way around this part of the jungle. The other groups had been back at the lodge for awhile at this point. We walked back and Juan talked with us about his aspirations to bring eco-tourism to his community. Towards the end of the walk back, poor Felix asked me what we were talking about in English and if we were laughing at him. I told him no, we were not talking about him, but about our lives at home. He felt very guilty and knew that Juan was upset with him. We told Juan to go easy on him. Diane was not happy that we were out in the jungle for 4 hours without a proper guide. After a jungle recovery nap, we walked over to the high school to make natural seed bracelets.

Friday morning, we got a wakeup knock at 5:00am to have breakfast at 5:30am and then go birdwatching. We took the canoe to an uninhabited island and saw the prehistoric Hoatzin bird. It is vegetarian and sits in the trees for a long time digesting food in its three stomachs. We also saw falcons, doves, parakeets, and other native birds. Later in the morning, Juan shared more about the Shiwiar culture with us. He brought his blowgun, toy top, mouth harp, and Tawaasam, crown of feathers. He is from Kurintza where people still live a hunt and gather lifestyle with a trade and barter commerce. The people live in houses without walls just a thatch roof over a large space. They sleep in hammocks and have no electricity which very much affects their diet. Their main beverage is Chicha, a feremented beverage made from yuca. They hunt for meat with blowguns and cultivate yuca and other vegetables as a starch in their diet. Their community works together to make sure that everyone has enough to eat and always shares excess food with neighbors. They are a very musical society with lots of instruments including flutes, violins, drums, and other percussion. The males in the community have the responsibilities of building houses and canoes, making string bags and hammocks, weaving baskets, and cultivating plantains. The women do most of the farming especially the yuca from which they prepare the Chicha. They also make ceramics and do the cooking. Their religious beliefs center around Shamanism which has historically prompted warring among neighboring communities. They believe that the Shamans hold great power and can curse neighboring villages. If one village or person falls on bad fortune, they believe it is a curse and their Shaman can send a counter-curse or they can attack the neighboring village. Juan´s grandfather was killed by a rival Shaman and he wanted to become a Shaman when he was young so that he could grow up and take revenge on the Shaman that killed his grandfather. The Shiwiar have a practice in war of making shrunken heads from their enemy. Juan grew up and had some Shaman training, but his parents told him that revenge was not a good reason to become a Shaman. Douglas came to his community when he was young and offered training to his older brother to work at the lodge and then Juan came later after he went to a Kichwa high school. He came out of his community for the first time when he was 15 and talked about seeing a car for the first time and being blown away by the size. Everything was new to him and his brother gave him his first pair of shoes and then left him at the boarding school. He learned Spanish and Kichwa and then went to work for the lodge where he started to learn English. He did a study abroad in New Hampshire where he lived with a family for 6 months and saw snow for the first time. It was quite a shock after living in the rainforest for most of his life. Douglas later took him on many return trips to the US to go to eco-tourism conferences. It is amazing how he still respects and wants to help his community, but also lives easily in a completely different world. His 5 senses are much more developed than people who grow up in ¨civilized¨ cultures because he constantly had to listen for animals in the forest and look for food and create weavings from native plants. He took us for a night walk after dinner and we saw tarantulas, wolf spiders, banana spiders, tailless whip scorpions, and a vine snake. It was lots of fun.

On Saturday, we went to the local market to see how people buy and sell products in the jungle. We experienced local moonshine, Aguardiente made from sugar cane syrup. It was not good. There were farmers selling a whole tree´s worth of plantains to a middleman and they received only $1! Corn sells at $.80 for 10 lbs, which is hardly worth the cost of growing it. Later in the morning, we walked over to the high school for the graduation ceremony. 47 students graduated including 3 girls. Their parents put on their robes and caps and then their grade point average was read off to the entire audience. The parents were very proud and everyone seemed happy as this was the first class to graduate from the high school. The sub-minister of education gave a speech praising the innovative work of the rural school. In the evening, some of us went to a local graduation party held outdoors on the volleyball court. The two students whose families hosted the party were sat at a table and everyone from the community brought them gifts. After the piles of gifts were packed away, the dancing started and then stopped when the generator failed. Someone ran off with a flashlight in the complete darkness and cranked it up again and the party continued. We conversed with the doctors and had a great time watching the locals enjoy themselves.

On Sunday, we packed up and took the canoes downstream to Coca and caught our flight to Quito. Sunday evening we had a group meeting to discuss our week at the lodge. Many of us had questions about what kinds of business practices the lodge had as well as community involvement or exclusion. The lodge has many missions including saving the rainforest, sustainable living, education, and health, but many in our group questioned their practices. Douglas, the white man, seemed to tell people what to do and how to think as opposed to working with the community and asking them what they want for themselves. The lodge only employs some community members, but the rest live in rough conditions with little choice about their station in life. The lodge started the local clinic, but it was taken over by the ministry of health three years ago and they now refuse to help the clinic at all. The steps were rotting out and Douglas refused to help fix them even after Diane told him that a member of our group had fallen as one broke underneath him. The practices of the lodge seemed to be similar to the historical white man know best model. Diane told us that the wildlife at the lodge and the state of the rainforest in general was greatly inferior to other parts of Ecuador and South America. We did not see any mammals and it seemed that the area was very populated, which causes reductions in wildlife. Our group would not have known any better if she had not had other experiences to compare it to. It was very eye opening. Diane also shared her experiences of community development in indigenous areas and talked about a model where a mediator asks the community what they want and need and creates pride about what they already have. This was not happening in the community of Mondana next to the Yachana Lodge. Although Diane was disappointed that our experience did not meet her expectations, we were all happy about the learning that occured in our reflections.

Last week our group left for the Amazon on Sunday, July 20^th on a flight from Quito to Coca and then got on a motorized canoe from Coca up the Napo River to the Yachana Lodge near the community of Mondana. It was a two and a half hour canoe ride with sights of people in dugout canoes and the edge of the rainforest. We arrived at the lodge and were given hot towels and fresh grapefruit juice. After unpacking our backpacks in our cabins, we took a walk through the jungle with our guide, Juan. He showed us the plant used to make panama hats as well as the palm used to weave hammocks. He also found a poison dart frog whose poison is used on the tips of blowgun darts. At a lookout point, there was a large hole in the ground and excrement from a 1 meter long earthworm. The food at the lodge was excellent- we had soup and chicken curry for dinner. After dinner, we went back to our rooms to take advantage of the electricity from the generator that ran from 6-10pm.

On Monday morning, we started off with a canoe trip across the river to a primary growth forest. We walked through a farming area, which looks very different than traditional American farms as the banana, plantain, coffee, and cacao trees are planted among native growth. We tasted the flesh that grows around a cacao seed (chocolate) and it was very sweet. After trekking though lots of mud (the lodge provided gum boots), we encountered katydids, frogs, millipedes, and toucans. Juan showed us a dragon’s blood tree that has blood red sap used for medicinal purposes as well as a Clarissa tree that produces super sticky sap that hardens over time and is used to glaze ceramics. We found a jaguar footprint fresh in the mud! After lunch, we went to a healer’s house where I received a cleansing ceremony involving tobacco smoke and dusting with leaves. We practiced our blowgun skills in their yard as well as spear throwing.

Tuesday was an interesting day as we toured the Yachana Technical High School campus and working farm. It is a boarding school where the teachers live in the same lodging as the students. The students work on the farm in the morning with many innovative techniques such as collecting pig excrement and using the methane gas produced as a source of power. In the afternoons, the students take classes such as English, computers, and math. The computer lab was fascinating as they have to have computers that are durable and do not break down in high humidity. The computers are tiny with 8 GB of removable hard drive space. There are no moving parts and flat screen monitors that hold up in the environment. The school has wireless internet capabilities. Unfortunately, we were only able to meet a few of the students as they are on summer break and a couple of boys were around completing summer internships at the lodge. They were hard working kids trying to learn skills that will give them more choices in life and skills that they can bring back to their rural communities. We had a cooking demonstration with our lunch that included wrapping tilapia in banana leaves and cooking it over the fire as well as fried yuca and boiled stinging nettle. The highlight, of course, was the grubs! They are a very fatty larva that tastes like bacon when cooked. The heads get especially crunchy when cooked and do not have an unpleasant texture. I enjoyed trying them, but would not suggest that they go on any menus. After eating, we had a “behind the scenes” tour of the lodge and how it runs. They have their own wood and metal shops because most items have to be produced on sight. There is a large recycling effort that includes composting, feeding food waste to pigs, crushing glass to be mixed with concrete, and burning paper waste. We were also offered a tour of the local clinic where two recent medical school graduates, Maria Fernanda and Victor Hugo are working as a year long rural assignment. The clinic is open 7 days a week and they work 22 days a month with one other doctor to cover all of the hours. Besides their hours in the clinic, they also each visit several rural communities once a month in the jungle. All of the care and medication that they provide is free through a government sponsored program. They have formula and vitamin drinks that any family can come and get once a month. One of the major health problems in the area is malnutrition and underweight children so they educate parents on proper nutrition and dietary needs as well as expecting mothers.

Tomorrow, I will post narrative about the rest of the week. Check back soon!

crossing a very safe bridge

A Kichwa healing ceremony

Juan demonstrating his mean spear throwing skills

The Yachana E2 8GB computer

tilapia, yuca, and boiled stinging nettle

Sunset on the Rio Napo

The local parrot, Yolanda!

Juan wearing his famous crown of Toucan feathers and red paint

Tarantula

Vine Snake

Heleconia

Yachana Technical High School Graduation

This post is made possible by a generous donation of computer time by the Director of the Yachana Lodge. Thanks, Douglas!

We arrived by plane to Coca on Sunday and took a river canoe (motorized) 2.5 hours upstream to the Yachana Lodge. We are in very nice cabins with screens on every window and a hammock on all of the porches. The food has been great…we had roasted grubs with our lunch just the other day (see above photo!). The hikes through the rainforest have been fascinating. We have seen jaguar footprints, toucans, monkeys, owls, and tree frogs. Very cool spiders too! We went to see another healer and I was cleansed with tobacco smoke and leaves. We have been tubing down the Rio Napo and have taken a tour of the local technical high school. There is so much to write about and so little time. Check back on Sunday for a full update of our trip. All my best to friends and family!

On Wednesday, July16th, we left my host parents, Gallo and Monica, in Otovalo and took a bus to the El Angel Watershed.  We picked up Susan Poats from the NGO, Randi Randi, and she led us up to Mira in the Carchi province of Ecuador.  We stopped to pick up three conservation rangers on the way to the El Angel Reserve.  Susan talked with us about the importance of the watershed and how it provides for the entire area, not only drinking water, but also water for irrigation.  On our way to 12,000ft up on the mountion, our bus driver hit a crater and we heard a loud crunch.  Everyone knew that it was not a good sound and we proved to be right and the angle had cracked the radiator.  We hitched a ride up the mountain with some other tourists and left our driver to deal with the bus.  The landscape on the reserve is amazing…it is called the Páramo and it looks like a picture from a Dr. Seuss book.  There is a special tree called a Frijeron that absorbs water from the air in the clouds and distributes it down to the soil.  It has very whitish yellow leaves and a long palm-like trunk that can survive forest fires.  There were also lots of grasses and shrubs.  On top of the dormant volcano, there was a crater lake that had clouds floating over it.  We hiked around the reserve with our guide, Luis, and learned about the plants, animals, and the watershed.  We had lunch really late because you are not supposed to eat when you are hiking in thin air.  After lunch, we listened the the amazing story of Monica, a working single-mother in Ecuador who is trained as a conservation guide.  We rode a different bus down the mountain and proceded to look in the repair shops in the next two towns for our bus.  It was there and apparently, they had used roofing materials to fix the leaky radiator.  We made it to our hostel without an incidents except for the giant spider and cockroach in our room.  Oh well.

Yesterday, we went to the community of Mascarilla which is 100% Afro-ecuadorian.  The community has delt with a lot of struggle starting with their history as slaves on the sugar-cane haciendas.  After fleeing or being freed from slavery, they were given the hardest land to farm in Ecuador.  In the past 50 years, they became famous for their papaya crops, but 10 years ago they were practically wiped out by a plant virus.  A community group was formed to train the women in making African-masks.  A number of women became quite talented and started to sell their work across Ecuador and Canada.  They built a community center and have now started a summer camp.  We were invited to visit the kids at the summer camp.  They were very curious about us as they don´t get a lot of visitors.  We watched them play some games and then introduced ourselves.  We broke up into small groups and taught them some American games.  It got to be very hot and they started up a game of soccer.  The Afro-Ecuadorian make up the most talented players on the national teams and it is an important sport for the region.  There is still a LOT of racism in Ecuador towards the indigenous people and even more so towards the Afro-Ecuadorians.  Their talents in soccer, however, are a source of national pride.  Some women from the community, Julia and Pequita, prepared us a delicious lunch of potato soup, shank steak, yucca, and vegetables.  It was really good.  We watched a video on their efforts at community development and then watched a mask-making demonstration.  They are very fast and very talented.  I collected some folk songs from the kids and Julia gave me two CD´s of local music- Bomba!  We had the afternoon free and got to swim in the pool and take a soak in the hot tub.  It was the first hot day we have had it Ecuador.  Very nice.  We took the bus back to Quito this morning and now are preparing for our trip to the Amazon on Sunday.  I am so excited!!!!

We had quite the long day today…we left Otovalo at 7:00am to catch a special train out of Ibarra that went through the Andes mountains towards Carchi province.  The train has seats on top and people who sit up there sometimes have to duck because of stray branches and wires.  We had fun chewing on raw sugercane and spitting it over the edge of the train that rode on the edge of the mountains.  I made it though without getting my face scratched.  We went through the most beautiful scenery and passed through at least 12 mountain tunnels.  We had to duck down a little lower in the tunnels so we wouldn´t get dripped on or hit our heads.  It was a very pleasant two hour trip.  We took vans from the end of the line to the Golondrinas Ecological Reserve in Carchi province.  The road up the mountain to the cloud forest was interesting as we got stuck in the mud a couple of times.  Luckily, our drivers were talented enough to get us out.  We were shown two different one room school houses on the mountain that have between 20-25 students.  They are very low on supplies and have very little money to get students more than a 6th grade education.  The high school is 7km away from the primary schools and most students drop out because their family cannot pay to put them on the bus and the walk is too far.  We will have to see if there is some way that we can help.  Our host here in Otovalo is going to set up a volunteer and charity organization to help them.  The people in the cloud forest have beautiful surroundings, but live in poverty.  Before lunch, we took a hike up the mountain to a waterfall and went swimming- it was amazing.  We hiked back for lunch prepared at the equilvilent of a cabin.  We had fresh trout from the river steamed in banana leaves seasoned with cilantro, garlic, and onions.  There was lots of fresh pineapple and tropical fruit as well as black beans and rice.  We also had white carrots, yuca, and naranjilla juice.  Amazing.  It was a three hour ride home in the vans.  I hope that I remember to pack everything as we are heading to the Valle de Chota tomorrow to visit an Afro-Ecuadorian community.

It was another intesting day in Otovalo. We had our last Spanish class this morning as well as a birthday party for our teacher, Juan. The cakes here have a very interesting frosting on them that tastes like merigue. It was deliciouso. We went to another Shaman ceremony this afternoon and watched a diagnois with the guinea pig and a healing ceremony. It was quite amazing outdoors in a valley with natural mineral springs. Dale was pelted with a cuy (guinea pig) to absorb all of the sickness inside her. The Shamana disected the cuy and told Dale about all of her maladies and the remedies for them. She noticed that the liver in the cuy did not look healthy and told Dale that she should not eat chocolate for a whole month. After the diagnois there was a cleansing ceremony that involved the Shamana drinking a sacred beverage and spitting it all over Dale´s body to cleanse her of any bad spirits. After the spitting and prayers, Dale dipped herself in the mineral spring and submerged. The Quichua family that was helping the Shamana with the ceremony lit a fire and then cleansed Dale with smoke. The last part of the cleansing was another egg rub. The Shamana rubbed eggs all over Dale´s body to pull out the bad spirits. When she first started, she let Dale listen to the egg, and she heard the yolk rattle. After it was rubbed all over, it did not have any sound because it had absorbed all of the bad spirits. The ceremony was an intesting mix of indigenous beliefs and Catholic beliefs. There were prayers to god and blessings of the people participating in the ceremony. I took lots of pictures and got a sunburn.

Yesterday was not as exotic, but just as interesting. We had the morning off of school because it was Sunday and went to a weaver´s workshop in the morning. They clean the sheep wool and then card it so the fibers all run in the same direction. After the fibers are rolled into a tube, they are spun into yarn. The yarn is dyed with natural dyes and then it is woven on a backstrap loom that has been used in Ecuador for hundreds of years. On our way to another small Quichua town, we ran into an Inti Raymi parade. Inti Raymi is a festival that coincides with the Fiesta de San Pedro or St. Peter´s Festival. When Catholicism came to Ecuador with the conquistadors, the indigenous people had their own interpretation of the beliefs because they did not speak Spanish. They worshipped the mountain before they knew about Catholicism and created a character, Inti Raymi, that has four ears so he can hear everything, two faces so he is always looking to the mountain god, and snakes coming out of his head to symbolize wisdom. The men dressed as Inti Raymi danced in the streets with bands and other groups of dancers dressed in their traditional clothes. It was a lot of fun! We went to a Quichua museum later in the morning and learned a lot more about the Quichua way of life and their respect for the environment around them. We ate a typical lunch of chicken, pork, quinoa and potato soup, mote (steamed corn), and juice. It was delicious, but Marge and I think that Monica, our host mother, cooks much better! They showed us the house where they keep their cuy and feed them alfalfa and fresh fruit everyday. The Quichua believe that cuy are a powerful animal and take a lot of care so when they cook them for guests, it is a showing of their respect and honor of the guest. We made a quick stop at the end of the night at an ice cream shop. The make ice cream differently in Ecuador, they take pure fruit juice and put it in a pot that has ice and rock salt underneath. They stir the juice by hand and turn the pan quickly until it turns into ice cream. It is called helado en paillo or ice cream in a pan! I tried guayabana and narajilla flavors- only found in South America! We had a surprise when we arrived back at home, Gallo and Monica had been to a fiesta for friends who were confirmed. They brought home a huge pan of three chickens and a cuy! They offered it to Marge and I to try and we said sure. It was grilled and still had its head- you could see the teeth. We were offered a leg, which is a high honor because it is the most valued part. Surprise- it tasted like rich chicken!