Animals, animals! Everywhere!

Ok, yes. I give you permission to roll your eyes at me...because of COURSE there are a lot of animals in a rural community in South America, but seeing animals everywhere we go has to be my favorite thing about being here. Just the other day we passed a pig and her baby piglets on our morning hike and I did everything I could not to pick one of the babies up and hug it. Katie and Mom, I know you would be doing the same. Here are some pictures of the "friends" I've made here. (Look very closely to the last line on the sign to see why I posted that picture).

I've been the most amazed by just how many different kinds of street dogs I've seen here. In Ecuador, most of the street dogs I've seen look about the same- almost fox or wolf-like but pretty much a basic mutt, but here I've seen Dalmations, Sharpes (forgive my spelling), Great Danes, Huskies, Basset Hounds, Bull Dogs, Golden Retrievers, Black Labs, Beagles, Westies, Boxers, and yes, even a little Gomez look alike in Cusco! Many of the street dogs are "owned" by someone, which basically means that the dog is fed by a certain family and is sometimes allowed in the house but sleeps outside. The most heartbreaking thing to learn is that some people don't like the street dogs, so in order to keep the population of street dogs under control, people will poison the dogs. This happened to two of Miguel's dogs, who is one of the founders of Awamaki. Both of his dogs were found dead by poisoning. It's incredibly sad.

And yes, the rumors are true. They do in fact eat guinea pig here in Peru. Cuy is a very popular dish. I'm afraid I can't quite get past the idea of eating a relative of my 2nd grade classroom's pet, so I have yet to try this local favorite. The cuy often share a living space with the families here and are probably the most well-taken-care-of, well-fed animal that the Peruvians keep. They are mostly eaten on special occasions so I'm actually quite surprised that we weren't served cuy at Mauro's baptismo. And I'm thankful as well!

Llamas are everywhere. As are cows, pigs, sheep, horses, donkeys, goats and alpacas...but alas, not a lot of photos of all these guys yet, mostly just a lot of photos of llamas. In the streets of Cusco, it is very common to see people dressed in traditional Quechua outfits, towing a llama or two behind them. It's quite a site in a "big" city but these folks are often trying to persuade tourists to take photos of them for a price. Some young girls dress up in their beautiful, colorful, red traditional outfits and carry baby lambs in hopes of getting you to pay them for their picture.

p.s. While I'm on the topic of animals, and especially dogs...Karen, Carol and Caroline, you will be happy to hear that I watched an episode of Martha Speaks on Discovery Kids yesterday while I was staying at a hotel in Cusco. VERY cool, although I will admit that I prefer Tabitha's voice to the Spanish dubbed voice they chose for Martha. Still, it was entertaining, none the less!