Road block

Yesterday getting out here it was cows on the carreterra. Today its alpacas in the road way. Chugging up the hillside like a locomotive in low gear, BIg Blue and the students. Hiking the orchid trail through the cloud forest behind Stu's pastures and splitting the group. Some continuing on with Coral to scout a new transect for mammal sign, some staying with me to help put up a camera trap for bears on this trail.

This task soon done I'm soon bumping down through the pastures on the way back to camp with Betsy and Alex we encountered this obstacle. Hemmed in by a sea of alpacas. PssssHHH! Yaa, ya! says, the young Kichwa girl driving them but they will not pass by the truck so close in this bottleneck of the road. So I turn the engine off and wait. Big nervous dark eyes and cute shuffling steps and then finally the big fluffy brown, the leader, runs past. Bundle after bundle off dark eyes and wooly fur passing by the car window. Watching the herd recede in the rear view mirror.

Smile. Crunch on gravel punctuating the vacuum left from that experience. Rolling down the hillside back to camp :)