I love animals and being in Peru allowed me the opportunity to learn about some of their local animals that I had never seen up close... alpacas and llamas. Both are very common in Peru, especially around Cusco. On many major streets in Cusco, you can see llamas being guided through the city by their owners and you can also ask to take pictures with them. Alpacas are less common in the cities but you will see a ton as you go through the sacred valley. On a couple of our excursions through the sacred valley, we saw farms with alpacas and llamas that they were raising to be able to use their fur to make clothes and blankets. These clothes are made from 100% alpaca fur and baby alpaca fur and are one of the main staples of the economy in Peru.
We also learned that alpacas and llamas are both domesticated members of the camelid family that lives in South America and two types of each are most commonly seen. There are Suri alpacas and Huacayo alpacas. There's an estimated population of 600 thousand Suri alpacas and 4 million Huacayo alpacas in South America. In terms of llamas, there are Qara llamas and Chaku llamas. They have a population of approximately 2 million and 2.5 million respectively.
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