Despite living in an Andean country, my first contact with camels was not live and directly, near my house. It was in the book Manqui y su guanaco, which my mother bought me when we lived in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Another approach came when I saw Lawrence of Arabia, where the English actor Peter O’Toole competes inch by inch for the lead role in a film with a series of wonderful and tireless camels. That was the extent of my childhood camel experience: mythical, literary, ideal.

As an adult and without realizing it, I was able to see, albeit from afar, in the middle of the Argentine mountains where a train of clouds passes, guanacos made of flesh, blood and wool. The camel in its natural habitat was the scene of the purest art. Proud, calm, with the wind blowing his fur in a color that blends with the dust of the mountains of that part of the world. The ears ended in points, rotating around their axis from side to side, alert to sounds.

The day has finally come when I will see the lamb face to face. After a somewhat crazy family trip along the Inca Trail, from Huancay, Peru to Tiwanaku, Bolivia, we came across decorated Bolivian llamas. President Evo Morales was also there, in all the glory against inequality and social injustice of his first presidency, to inaugurate the agricultural fair. We were foreigners, but we felt welcome because of the legendary kindness of our countries. On that moving journey through the roots of our indigenous heritage, my husband decided that one day he would have a llama and, after studying Kichwa several years later, he concluded that he would indeed have a llama and that his name would be Saywa.

Not knowing for sure if there really was an animal fair in Saquisilí, we went one morning to the province of Cotopaxi in search of a llama. We arrived when the sun was no longer on the edge of the horizon and the sellers explained to us with a well-deserved mocking smile that for llamas you must “know how to wake up”. Fortunately, disappointment was replaced by surprise soon after a friend had a pregnant llama and was ready to give us the oldest child.

As with any project I undertake, I decided to read everything I could about raising llamas and reach out to experts, but no one responded to my email and I didn’t find much information. Through experience, I found out that a llama can enter the house to eat indoor plants, without any trouble (literally) eat all the blackberries we planted, pose for group photos, wear socks we dry in the sun, and enjoy the fire and football.

The UN declared 2024 the International Year of Camelids, in recognition of their cultural, economic and nutritional importance in more than 90 countries. It’s time for my friend from Guayaquil to stop postponing her trip to Amaguaña to meet Saywa, white-faced and silver, with a body the color of fried corn, to celebrate with him in style. Everyone is invited! (OR)