Alpaca Trekking

On Sunday afternoon I went on an alpaca trek on a farm near the Kent coast. I spent a couple of hours with my alpaca Hershey, who frankly wasn’t over the moon about the whole arrangement. It was like a very awkward first date.

I'm on the right. Daft Punk on the left.

Here’s another pic, more close up this time. He looks like a fat boy who’s walked through a snow storm:

Hershey was aggressively ambivalent to me the whole time we were together, only feigning any sort of affection when I gave him carrots, the little whore.

The Alapaca trek is obviously a hot ticket in Kent, because I found this car in a ditch on the road into the farm:

 These guys obviously couldn't wait to get to the alpacas, and had taken the bend too fast. I checked in the car to make sure nobody was in it, but there was only some travel sweets and eight quid in cash. Which was handy because there was a farm shop.

The alpaca trek experience is aimed at children predominantly, and the other people on the trek were a mother and her young daughter, but why should kids have all the fun? A point I made vociferously to the girl’s mother when I refused to give her any of the communal carrots.

I subjected our guide Lara to a relentless barrage of questions, notably “Do you ever shampoo the alpacas?” (No). Which is a real shame because that would be very therapeutic I think, getting them all lathered up. Good therapy for the recently bereaved I suggested,  but she disagreed. “What’s the weirdest thing you could make an alpaca breed with?” I asked. She said she didn't understand the question, so I rephrased it “Like, could an alpaca ever mate with a lion?” (No). She mainly spoke to the little girl from this point.

Alpacas are from the camel family, and they are pretty much Llamas in a onesie. That’s their raison d’etre: their famously thick and soft fleece. The thing is, alpacas don’t like you touching their fleece. In fact they don’t like you at all. They are prey animals, meaning that everything is trying to eat them. Which makes them really jumpy: any sort of noise and they bolt. (When I farted Hershey almost took my arm off). They’re also very hierarchical animals, and walk together in a straight line like a woolly conga. If anyone tries get above their station and jump the line they get spat at. Yes: literally spat at. Alpacas have two stomachs (like cows), and they regurgitate green bile from the first chamber and gob it at you. They’re like sheep with ASBOs basically.

Alpacas really are prima-donnas, and what with their hair, it’s like hanging out with a high-maintenance 80s pop band:

Because alpacas can be psychos, farmers often get a few of them to scare off dogs and foxes, like a security guard made out of cushions. Alpacas hate dogs, and if they corner one they jump on it until it dies, like canine bubble wrap. Not so cute now are they? When the little girl heard that her face dropped, as if she had just walked in on her Barbie taking heroin.

We walked around the Romney Marshes for an hour and then returned to the farm to collect our certificates:

 Lara, our guide, asked the young girl and her mother if they would like to be put on the same certificate or have their own. She said the reason she asked was on the last trek she put a married couple on the same certificate and the woman said “No, I want my own certificate just in case we get divorced”. Because that’s the big issue with a divorce isn’t it? Who gets custody of the alpaca certificate? “You can keep the kids! I can have more of the pricks! But there’s only one alpaca diploma!”

Anyway, I had a lovely time. No idea why, but I did. And Hershley and I still text a bit.

NEXT TIME: BIRD OF PREY EXPERIENCE