I just got back into civilization from hiking the Inca Trail. 4 days in the wilderness to hike 45km from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. It’s a very challenging but scenic hike.
I will post about the hike later, but first I need to talk about my llama friends. The Inca’s built a lot of terraces for crop growing. As such the llamas tend to spend their days chilling out on the terraces eating grass. In many cases you will walk on a terrace below the relaxed llama.
Is this llama chilled out or is he going to jump off this cliff?
Now, I think that llama suicide rates are fairly low (reference needed) but I was unlucky enough to see a fight between 2 llamas on the terrace above. They were probably arguing over territory, although my hiking group seemed to think they were trying to get to me. Either way, one of them almost came off the cliff and landed on top of me!
He just managed to regain his balance and jump back as a significant amount of soil fell three meters or so to the ground at my feet.
The wounded llama sticking out his ears while the aggressor goes back to munching his grass. You can see the soil in the middle of the picture.
The lesson here is to always look around while you are hiking (even after 45km).
As a history lesson, llamas are not native to Machu Picchu, a male and a female were introduces there and now you see lots of them on the inca trail.