The Llamas of Sacsayhuaman

While working on the post for Sacsayhuaman (coming soon), I discovered that some of our most memorable moments, and about a third of our pictures, were of our interactions with some adorable four-legged, two-toed grass-grazers. Plus, it’s been a while since we’ve had a good animal post, so, without further ado, here are the Llamas of Sacsayhuaman.

The guidebooks describe Sacsayhuaman as a massive Inca structure with jagged stone walls, and amazing city views, but…wait…there’re llamas here too?!

Llamas, alpacas, and vicunas are all camelids native to South America, but llamas can be distinguished by their shaggy coat and longer ears and nose.

Both llamas and alpacas are domesticated but only the llamas are the ones that can carry heavy loads through the Andes mountain ranges.

And behind the scenes, taking a little selfie with the locals.

Curious llama meets Canadian tourist.

To harvest llama wool, they are shorn in spring, just like sheep.

Although baby alpaca wool is touted in the markets as the softest and wool, llama wool is still used in textiles, and I can’t help but wonder how soft a baby llama would be.

Llamas like to be in herds and whenever one decided to move onto greener pastures, the others followed soon after.

Llamas have a nasty reputation of being spitters, but we only met polite, non-spitting llamas.

There’s no hooves for these animals, just a pair of soft, careful toes with little toenails.

Not particularly picky eaters, llamas pretty much eat whatever vegetation can be found, from grass to mountain shrubs to moss and lichens.

This guy was making a spectacle rolling around in the dust. This is him, post-dust bath and ready for his photo debut.

Jimmy doing his best “Lord of the Llamas” impression.