I llove llamas. Always have. Alpacas, too. Cute little faces, big eyes. Sweet, shy, quiet. I would always try to go see them at the San Diego County Fair each year, but the timing wasn't always right--or a Certain Someone would be tugging in an entirely different direction from the animal barns.There seem to be quite a number of llama/alpaca operations in our area and last year, at the Nevada County Fair, I enjoyed quite a bit of time with the alpacas and their people. But I missed the alpaca ranch tour because it happened to be scheduled for the day we arrived home from Germany. So, imagine my enthusiasm about the 12th Annual Grass Valley CAL-ILA (Cal. Int'l Llama Assoc.) Llama (not Alpaca--that would be the CAL-IAA) Show generously advertised for this weekend. "One of the biggest llama shows in the western United States" declared the Union. All manner of llama activity was scheduled from fiber and spinning demos to competitions of various sorts. Will there be hundreds? Thousands? Cool yarn goods to buy? Fun food? Andean music wafting through the air? I was planning to wallow in llama-ness!
Uh, Llamapalooza, it wasn't (seriously, that's what some of these events are called). Perhaps it was the cold, rainy weather. Or maybe llama folks are more than a bit like their charges. Sweet, shy, not big party people. I arrived at the fairgrounds, hoping to find a good parking spot. No worries. There was only one other car in the lot. Wrong place? Wrong time? I parked right next to that car (why, I wonder?), and walked through the open gate, which was the one and only indication of an event in progress. No signs, no greeters. I needed a few tumbleweeds to blow by to the tune of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" to complete the creeping sense of ghost town.
I did find them. Up by the animal pens, as if the whole event were huddling close to keep warm. The stalls were, indeed harboring some llamas and their keepers. Aha! Now we're getting somewhere! But was I the only non-llama owner in the small group of humans? Very possibly.
On one side of the stalls, there was a fiber-judging event. Some llamas and their owners lined up waiting for the judge to feel a little patch of fluff left on the flanks of the recently shorn animal for that purpose. A very quiet affair. I patted a few (llama) necks and tiptoed away. On the opposite side, there was the, um, Llama Olympics. This consisted mostly of llamas refusing to step over 8"-high bars or 4" cardboard circles on the ground, or not trotting as the handlers pulled with all their might, or not getting into a van or truck no matter what the owners did to coax them. More like llama trauma. They apparently find it beneath their dignity to comply with the hilariously simple tasks on demand. Can't blame them, really. The one bit of excitement I did see was one little guy who stood between the low-bars and peed and pooped and peed and then pooped again. He got an ovation.
As for the country-fair type merchandise booths and delicious South American cuisine, there were two card tables and a catering truck. The truck was selling tacos, and the tables, sheltered by inadequate canopies and "personed" by two friendly, but obviously uncomfortably-cold women, offered crystal suncatchers (ironically-named and completely unrelated to llamas in any way) and a few pieces of wool jewelry. Really. Llama-wool earrings. I smiled and wandered off.
I learned some things. There were the pack-llamas and the show/wool llamas. The Huacayas (fluffy llamas) and Suris (straighter, crimped wool), like the alpacas. Folks were friendly and answered questions, as they stood waiting for the wool-judge or watching uncooperative llamas not do stuff. One guy was working for the ranch just down the road and invited me to stop in sometime and get a tour. Gave me a card. I'll do it, one of these days. After I recover from the disappointment.
Still, they ARE cute, aren't they?
