We learned on our travels that guanaco hair is so valued that the national parks people’s have taken to shaving them so they are not of value to poachers. They are such gentle solitary creatures, shy and jumpy, when we did see them (or vicunas which are similar) they headed off in another direction.
I guess guanacos are a coastal cameloid, vicuñas come from nearer the Andes and further north, and llamas are everywhere.
There are many degrees of fine in the textiles here. Baby alpaca and llama are highly valued but it seems the wool all goes to Peru to be processed. Some of the serapes have huge prices and somebody must obviously buy them. They also have cashmere here apparently up north.
The llama is more wooly and heavy but baby llama is sold too. But when we saw Chinese markings on the packaging of one lot of cashmere, we had to wonder if it hadn’t come from China. But the lady assured us it was packaged for that market. Well maybe..
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