Bucket List Checked: Peru (p.3)

don't think,

just embrace your inner alpaca.

~ gabriel cano-garraway

While in Peru, we ran into examples of two types of animals - camelids and canines.

Camelids (which I know only because I just looked it up on Google) include llamas, alpacas and vicuñas.

What is the difference between a llama, an alpaca and a vicuña?  Well, in Peru I learned that llamas were bred to be pack animals and their fur is not used for wool.  But alpacas were bred for their wool.  And vicuñas have the best wool of all - but they have never been successfully domesticated - so the wild ones are rounded up once a year and sheared, before being released back into the wild.

Here is a picture of a vicuña (in a little roadside "zoo"):

I still can't really tell llamas and alpacas apart by looks.  But I have noticed that they both like to eat grass...  A LOT!  

... and have adorable babies...

Here is someone pretending to be a Dalmatian - guess he didn't see the movie to know that there will still be people out there who want his fur!  

And here is someone who is apparently hoping that "dreadlocks" will spare him from the shearer's tools...

(If you are thinking, "Those last two pictures are llamas, they don't get shorn" - then I respond, "Ah!  But maybe they don't know that...")

Anyways, I can report that we were not spit on by any type of camelid whatsoever...  ;)

We also saw a lot of dogs.  Now, we saw a lot of stray dogs running around in Mexico, but they all looked like they were starving and suffering.  It was hard to look at them - we certainly didn't take any pictures of them.  :(

But the dogs running around the streets in Peru actually looked reasonably healthy.  I'm not sure how or when they are fed, but you can see for yourself that they pretty much look comfortable and "at home."  

They were generally either watching the world go by:

Grabbing a bite to eat:

or napping in the middle of the market place:  

or a doorway:  

This one found a small ledge to nap under, for protection from the rain:

He didn't budge an inch when people went up to the counter to purchase postcards, hat pins or books.  ;)

More pictures tomorrow!