Dave, My Pet Capybara
Capybara are the world's largest living rodent. Sounds like a great pet eh??
They are related to guinea pig and they apparently make good pets so when Simon spied a group of capybara near the waters edge, we gave chase!
This was not easy.
Capybaras are excellent swimmers and can stay underwater for about 5 minutes which usually helps to evade predators especially of the Irish or German variety. They are a very shy animal and will normally make a run for it when you get within in sight. They can communicate through a series of barks, purrs and whistles or squeaks...which they did a lot of during the course of our very long and ill faithed chase.
Back in the days when people stuck to the whole eating fish during Lent thing, the Catholic Church deemed the capybara to be fish due to their aquatic lifestyles. For this reason, capybara became a delicacy as the only meat allowed to be eaten.... I think you may be able to guess where this story is going by now.....
While most the capybara dived into the water, the rest ran off in every direction. When we finally organised ourselves and chased the same one things became a little easier until one of the capybara ran right into me. As a reference to Only Fools And Horses, I decided to name him Dave. Duezimar came up with a different name but I couldnt pronounce it so Dave it was.
On the way back to our camp, I realised how gentle a animal Dave really is. Never made an angry noise or tried to run away and definitely loved its tough fur being rubbed. It was then that I learnt of the translation to the name that Duezimar gave to young Dave...Dinner! Which kind of explained the effort that the two boys put into trying to catch him.
I must admit that I too was hungry but then again I have never named my food before. While the boys got a big fire going to heat up the stones, I dug a little pit and layered it with leaves. I must assure you that everything was done in the most humane manner, after all, he is my mate Dave. After gutting him, we very unskillfully placed the hot stones inside him, covered him in leaves and placed into the pit. I then covered him over and built a small smoldering fire above the pit.....
We then went asleep in anticipation of our great feast.
It was beautiful!
We made a toast to Dave and then tucked in. Words cannot describe how good the juicy succulent meat tasted. I have never cooked something so good. Granted we were starving anyway and of course fed up with eating fish for every single meal and snack.
How could one be a vegatarian when God made animals such as this so good??
Oh and yet another great point that I later learnt about these Masters of the Grasses is that they are coprophagous, which apparently means that they eat their own waste!! Apparently this is good for them but I am confused as to whether this is good for me or not....
