Our encounter with the Alpacas of the Dammed or as Max calls them, Moopacas of the Damned began early this morning on our return from Bellingham...I saw a sign on the road that said "Antiques, Tulips, Alpaca" and I thought "well, who doesn't love antiques, tulips and Alpacas? Let's turn off the road!
Unfortunately, the antique shop was closed, there were no signs of tulips and the entrance to the Alpaca pens was also closed. As soon I said "Oh...it looks closed" I was greeted with the kind of whine that can only emanate from a 3 year who informed me at 3:30 that morning that he 'had a great nap and was ready to watch little bear now' and was starting to feel the effects of waking up so early "but...I want to see...Llamas...you...said...we could see Llamas mommy..."
"Alpacas, honey"
"I want Llamas!"
"Al...alright, give me a minute"
At this juncture, my brain already slightly addled by lack of sleep and relatives, I decided to take my toddler trespassing across a plowed field to get to the alpaca pens.
Ok, so you know that movie, Village of the Damned, where the kids are spooky and murderous? It was kind of like that, only with alpacas. I mean, I don't think they were aliens or anything, but there was definitely something unsettling about these ungulates.
When we walked up to the pen, I pretty much expected the alpacas to behave as every other barn yard animal on earth, review the situation for feeding potential and then resume normal activities such as staring off into space as soon as possible. Not so for the alpacas. This lovely little group of herd animals, which originate from the Andes mountain range in South America, remained unnervingly alert to our presence.
First, they were really quiet. I looked down at Max for a moment and looked up to see them gliding to the side of the pen and eying us with suspicion. The whole time I did not hear one sound from these creatures. Second, they were shaved. Not like the "oh, it's that cute" kind of shaved, the "what the hell?" kind of shaved.
I'm not sure what human could have done this, so it must have been part of their alpaca cult initiation, especially since not all of the alpacas were shaved. In addition, several of the alpacas had their "true names" (i.e. alpaca cult names) around their necks. I noticed that only the shaven alpacas had these little names on them, so the two must be connected.
I half expected the alpaca grand master to shimmy out of the barn and demand we be served up with the morning's alfalfa. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the grand master was already there, in our midst...I kept trying to make light of it, talking about how cute they were...how they were so sweet, all the while trying to back Max away from them...I even took a a video...Max knew...listen to the end.
I realized he was the grand master because he kept coming up to me, just...staring. Finally, we made a run for it. You can see the grand master alpaca warning me never to return in the background, along with his underlings making sure we had taken off.
We were lucky to escape with our lives.
