The Quest for Capybara

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the life, times and mind of the travelling duo that are Tarquin and Vanessa (collectively known as Banquin). Rather than give you a blow by blow account of the trip, this will be a collection of random thoughts and events. Hopefully you will enjoy it.

First to the title of the trip. A Capybara is the worlds larget rodent. As I am reliably informed (thankyou Mr Jones), the Capybara has been declared by the Pope to be a fish. The Capybara is not a fish, doesnt even look like a fish. It has been declared a fish so that the large numbers of religious South Americans who have nothing else to eat do not starve during Lent. Rather convenient. I intend to eat a Capybara, simply to see what this type of "fish" tastes like.

But on to the trip so far. We have slotted nicely into the routine of lying on beaches and having extened lunches involving the consumption of an inderterminate number of beers, the first of which has been captured on this new fangled "polaroid" as shown below.

On a side note, this beer is a VB. It is a VB because of the 10 beers that the restaurant offered on their menu, the only one they were stocking was VB. Odd character restauranteurs.

Two other quick stories before I leave you all alone. Story number 1:

On a bus from Stu's house to Bondi Beach. We were in a pair of seats as the bus begins to fill. An old man got on, wandered up to Vanessa and tapped her on the leg ... "these seats are for old people, not young people". Vanessa raised an eyebrow and looked around at the 15 other spare seats available to the man. She turned back in time to see the old man begin to vigorously point to the sign on the bus window which bans people from putting their feet on a seat, all the while nodding his head with conviction. Conceding defeat, albeit still unsure why, we rose and passed on the seats to the elderly man and his partner.

Story number 2:

We had to do it .... Coogee Bay Hotel .... gelati. We headed down to have a couple of quiet ales and a gelati at this culinary delight. We strode in chests out, keen to take on the best their kitchen could throw at us ...poo or no poo. Grabbing the menu we scanned down for the magical words. Gelati, where is the gelati. It was nowhere to be found. It would seem they had taken it off the menu. A disappointing end to the first of my quests for odd and/or famous foods. All we got was some seafood, chicken and chips. Hardly the stuff of great excitement but worth a photo for what it might have been.

Thats about the lot for now. It is only Sydney after all, we havent ventured into the wild and wonderful worlds of South America as yet. I am sure there will be more, but until then, in the words of the Pope "Its a damn fish ... look at it".