Hot Springs and Soccer Playing Alpacas!

Feb 20, 2015

Up early. Raúl, José and Raúl's 17 year old daughter Mariana came along for the ride to Chivay via Coporaque where we made a pitstop for Coca tea. Along the road we stopped a number of times to check out sheep, vicuña, llamas and alpacas!

We met Abel, a 12 year old who was herding 40 sheep and he came up the hill to meet us when José called him over. He was very shy but told us he was in Grade 3, that he lived about a 20 minute walk away. He owns one pair of shoes - sandals made of tire treads and his little toes were gnarley and filthy black.The kids that live out here in no man's land are usually malnutritioned and some don't go to school. Those that do can go up to Grade 6 nearby but after that they would have to go to a bigger town for further schooling and sometimes it is just not affordable. We gave him some candies, a banana, some leftover chicken and a boiled egg that we had, some pens for school and a flashlight. He was most excited about the food.

Next we pulled over at the side of the road where two kids David, 9 and his 15 year old brother were herding llamas and alpacas and had them all coralled in a small circular rock wall. David said that he used to walk 3 hours each way to school but they moved to be closer to it. The house is in very rough shape.

Did you know that alpacas play soccer? This was fun. We grabbed an old deflated ball the boys had and tossed it in with the amimals, which of course drew out the soccer players in the bunch. A few laughs. Alpacas only have bottom teeth so Rainer was comparing me to them. He's such a funny guy. By the way, for those who missed it on ESPN, the soccer score was Alpacas 1, Bloess 0. They also had better footwork, were quicker on the ball and could dangle with their finesse moves. We left them with Canada t-shirts and flashlights and they were pretty happy (the kids, not the alpacas).

We rolled into Chivay and had a nice buffet lunch down a back street where I took another shot of two kids bottle- feeding a baby alpaca water. Because we took his photo he asked for a tip, to cover the cost of milk for his pet. Guess they prefer milk to water.

In Chivay we visited some hot springs and spent a few hours surrounded by mountains soaking up the great heat. It was getting cooler here so the heat was welcomed.

We made a pitstop back at the hotel, dried off a tad and headed for a folkloric dinner show which was fun, especially since Rainer got dragged up for two dances while I escaped withe only one, to the tune of El Condor Pasa, better known in Canada by the lyrics, "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail". Oddly enough they play this at the Peruvian changing of the guard in Lima as welll! Rainer 'performed' a dance called malaria where he was poisoned by his wife with an orange and when she thinks he is dead she starts flogging him (in the crotch of all places). It's pretty funny.

Back to the hotel to reorg for tomorrow's fun! We could hear Carnaval partiers late into the night in the town square.