What Llamas Taught Me About Traveling Alone
The car zigzagged through the harrowing mountain peaks, swerving past llamas that dotted the road. When the car finally stopped, I flung open the door to gasp for fresh air and toddled out with my luggage onto the pavement. A group of colorfully dressed local women looked quizzically at me as if I just beamed in from a space machine.
I was in Urubamba, the valley of the Incas in Cusco, Peru, my home for the next ten weeks to conduct a community development service project. I had insisted to take a shuttle from Cusco, about one hour from Urubamba, instead of being picked up by program personnel. I preferred to digest and sit alone with the discomfort of being on my own in a foreign country for the first time.
Thus, I found myself staring at a line of vibrantly colorful hats, with faces peering from underneath as I searched for the address in my booklet. I approached the first lady in the line-up, opening the booklet in my palm as if I were giving her an offering. Unfortunately, she spoke Quechan, and we could not understand each other. I moved down the line, and each person murmured something in Quechan and passed me on to the next, until I reached the last person who was leaning against a llama with a beautifully embroidered manta draped over its body. The animal looked at me impassively as if bored by my tentative presence. I thought — wouldn’t it be wild if this llama is the one who tells me where to go. At this point, I felt like anything was possible.
Fortunately, a man sitting in front of his popcorn machine across the street, with his llama adorned with red tassels on its ears, gestured to me to ask him. Thankfully, he spoke Spanish and directed me on my way. I felt the llama’s droopy eyelids follow me as I walked away, as if he has accompanied the disquietude of one too many wandering foreigners in this ancient town of his. While I settled into my new temporary home, these llamas taught me a few life skills about traveling alone for the years to come.
Find your herd
Llamas are known to be very social and will ‘adopt’ a group of sheep or goats as their own herd. They will then protect the herd by chasing off coyotes and other predators. Although I had my program cohort, I strayed from the pack and befriended several locals in the town — the village potter, whose family raised cuyes (guinea pigs) for the weekend market; my neighbor who worked at a local NGO; the salon owner’s daughter, who taught at a primary school in a village near town. Like llamas, these locals took me into their herd and watched over me like family.
Everyday, without much coordination (in the days without cell phones), members of my herd will have somehow gathered ourselves to move from destination to destination — from grazing at the Plaza de Armas during the day, to retreating to the internet cafe to burrow for hours on end, and then passing by my friend’s salon to chew the cud, before ruminating some more at the only bar in town in the evenings.
The one time I left my herd, I took a side trip to Bolivia with two fellow American girls in my program. We played cards and gossiped throughout the trip and giddily shared our precious ration of Kit Kats and Snicker bars. But after the 12-hour overnight bus trip back to Cusco, I woke up at the station alone on the bus. My travel companions had left and returned to Urubamba without me. I learned then to only travel with my herd, or with those whom they trust. That was the last time I left my herd.
No matter where I traveled, I befriended a few locals who took me under their wings — From the Cantonese family who owned a restaurant in Guanajuato, Mexico, where I would stop by for my fix of choy and steamed fish, to local friends in San Jose, Costa Rica, whom I entrusted for my weekend plans, to the network of Chinese-Peruvians in Lima, whom I met during a two-month research, in which we bonded over karaoke and ate family style every night.
Finding a herd that enacted as my home base in a new country allowed me to branch out safely while checking in with people I trusted to know about my whereabouts. By finding a herd, countries felt smaller and less intimidating, where my connections with the people and culture gave me a much more enriching and meaningful experience than I otherwise would have had.
Be social but stay vigilant
Llamas are well-socialized, very friendly and pleasant to be around. However, they spit when agitated. When traveling on my own, I have learned to make friends and stay open and curious, but to never let my guard down. On one occasion when taking a bus back to Urubamba, a seemingly friendly young man sat next to me and intrusively insisted to know where I stayed so that he could drive me home from the station.
For llamas, spitting is a manifestation of a territorial threat that can serve as a warning, as well as an act of aggression. Short of actually spitting, I made enough verbal and physical signs of irritation until he finally backed off his request.
Llamas are also known for spraying if mistreated or upset. The young man on the bus did not know, but coming from New York City, I always carried pepper spray, and I did so when I traveled overseas as well, ready to deploy its use when necessary. Other situations also called for my heightened vigilance — walking under a highway bypass to get back to my hostel in Lima, Peru; hitching a ride back to town in Leon, Mexico; walking through crowded markets in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I loved meeting people on the road and staying curious about my surroundings, but like a llama, I stood ready to spit or spray if my territorial boundaries were threatened.
Stay Calm
Llamas are known for their calm, almost bored, demeanor. I was confronted with a torrential rainstorm on my hike to Macchu Picchu. While the porter warned us to be careful of mudslides, I tried not to panic as I saw the close distance of the steep drop of the cliff next to me. My murky eyes could not see what laid ahead, but I focused on the steady rhythm of the porter’s llama plodding confidently in front of us. Untroubled by the wet terrain, the llama led us safely to the campsite.
Learning from one of the world’s oldest domesticated animals, staying calm has enabled me to defray situations of potentially great stress and allowed me to more clearly assess each situation, such as being cornered by a pack of stray dogs in San Jose, Costa Rica, getting lost on a hike that turned into a ten-hour ordeal in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and getting driven around in a Tuk Tuk in Cambodia by a man who seemed to purposely miss the route back to my hostel one rainy evening.
And then, there was that time I arrived in Ghana, at the height of Ebola, with hysteria all around me, I exited the airport into the dense fog of people and sweat, and onto my next quest for discovery.
All through my travels, I maintained my composure of knowing where I was. As if wearing tassels on my ears like the many llamas I met, I maintained my composure and stayed steadfast at every next move, which would ultimately lead me onto solid ground.
I remember fondly the days of traveling alone where I composed my unscripted days by embracing the unknown of my surroundings. By learning to channel my inner llama, I developed a wellspring of amity that has expansed decades and confidence that has set me up for a lifetime of adventures.
