The Alpaca Is My Shepherd

The Furry Animals Lead a Scenic Hike in the Hills of South Germany 

- Prathap Nair

From the moment Rudi is handed to me, I sense that he is skittish and perhaps distrustful of me. He hyperventilates occasionally as his woolly nostrils flare up, and tugs at his leash as we walk alongside each other. All around us are fields of dill, pumpkin, and potatoes framed by the summer green of the peaks of Swabian Alps on the horizon. I rub his sand-coloured neck and belly, recently shorn by his minders, and that seems to put him at ease.

Sandy-brown Rudi, with dark plums for eyes and an inquisitive stare, is a three-year old alpaca who lives in a farm in Nürtingen, a town in south Germany. On this midsummer July morning on a Saturday, he is also my companion for the hour-long alpaca hike arranged by his owners at Alpakafarm Schaber.

Alpacas are curious creatures. Their long necks are held straight, giraffe-like, and their elongated eyes and upright oval ears make them look more like genetically mutated chow chow dogs. Nothing surprises you more than the sight of an alpaca ambling around in the sparsely populated woods of Germany, far from their natural habitat in South American Andes. Startled by the sight of a few of them on a weekend trek around Stuttgart, I began to enquire further, and my research led me to the picket-fenced gates of Schaber.