animals that can transport the products 
that come from the various levels of this 
“vertical environment.” Llamas, in ad- 
dition to serving as a source of animal 
products and as local beasts of burden, 
have for centuries been assembled into 
caravans for this long-distance trade. 
More sure-footed on the rugged terrain 
than the burros (and horses) imported 
by the Spaniards, the native llamas are 
also cheaper to maintain. They can for- 
age along the route for their food, while 
burros, the usual beasts of burden in 
nonpastoral areas, require fodder that 
has to be grown or purchased. 
As accustomed as they may be to 
physical discomfort, the Aymara find 
journeying with llamas an extraordinary 
hardship. “To travel with llamas is to 
suffer,” is the refrain of those familiar 
with the experience. In recent years, as 
the people of Pampa Aullagas have 
found alternative means of obtaining 
valley products, they have tended to 
abandon the arduous task of conducting 
llama caravans. Many drovers have so 
depleted their stock of male llamas by 
butchering them for market that they 
lack sufficient numbers to outfit future 
expeditions. When llama caravans were 
the rule rather than the exception, how- 
ever, they helped occupy the dead time 
between the May harvest and the Sep- 
tember planting. In years of poor har- 
vest and famine, entire families em- 
barked on such caravans in the search 
for food. 
Because of a severe drought, the har- 
vest of 1977 was a dismal one, giving me 
the opportunity to take part in a llama 
caravan that under other circumstances 
would probably not have been orga- 
Loren McIntyre. CHER 
On a ten-day journey from the Peruvian 
highlands, a llama caravan carries 
potatoes to Arequipa to be traded for 
lowland produce. 
nized. The instigator was fifty-year-old 
Sergio, who was accompanied by his 
new son-in-law, Hilario, age twenty- 
seven. Hilario confided to me that at 
that time of the year he normally would 
be in the Department of Santa Cruz 
working as a migrant laborer, but he was 
going along out of obligation to his new 
father-in-law. The rather domineering 
Sergio had also succeeded in getting 
Hilario to convince his own father to join 
them. Four years older than Sergio, 
63 
