Altiplano Daughter E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

In the harsh environment of The Altiplano, the high plains of Peru, a young man and woman, divided by wealth and race, face challenges to their love.

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

Altiplano Daughter

To the Alpaca BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Altiplano Daughter

Peru 2015

The men lassoed the Alpaca, pulled it down and quickly stretched it out on the earth. The legs were secured by rope to pegs at the front and rear so the animal was restrained - a sack was quickly placed over the head to calm it.

Swiftly, using hand shears, the men went to work, peeling away the fleece of fine hair from the body. Then the animal was flipped over and the other side done. Only the head was unsheared and the completed Alpacas rose looking like footballers with their various expressive haircuts.

Don Pablo, the ranch owner, urged the teams on; there were 600 to be sheared today if the weather held out.

Alfanetta, 19, dressed in calf length leather boots, jeans and a yellow top, looked on from the makeshift corral. Here, out in the altiplano on the slopes of Wisk’acha, the morning air was dry and cold. She hugged herself in her fleece.

A nervous Alpaca nuzzled her arm and she stroked its long neck. Her fingers delved into the body hair reaching the warmth of the animal.

She loved Alpaca but shearing always seemed so invasive, barbarous and dominant. The Alpaca stretched out rigid and its hair removed as if it had committed a crime, collaborated with some enemy.

These were royal animals after all, the gift of the Incas, they needed to be treated with respect.

Her friend Quinti had a different approach than that of her father Don Pablo.

Don Pablo Gallardo had a total herd of 2,000 animals, looked after in groups.

Quinti’s family had 100 head herded by his father. They lived much higher up at 15,000 feet. Their small adobe house lay next to their flock.

Gallardo had a mansion in Spanish style at 3,000 feet. He ran the Alpaca as an intensive money making unit. A good Alpaca fleece was worth $4,000 and Don Pablo sought to maximize his returns. But he also ran sheep and cattle.

Quinti’s father depended entirely on his herd of Alpaca. Each was known individually and daily he checked on them.

Alfanetta watched Quinti working within the shearing gang, his lithe manly body bending and flexing as he lent over the animals.

They had met at university. Quinti’s father and mother were scrimping and saving to send him there, determined that the boy would not suffer the hard life in the altiplano.

For her part Don Pablo her father could easily afford the university fees. He saw university as a finishing school for his daughter before she married the rich son of another rancher. Her father was disinterested that she studied Ecology.

The sun grew stronger, heating the morning air; it was going to be a hot day of work for the men.

One by one the shorn Alpacas leapt up on release and staggered off to form a free group huddled nervously near a patch of Yareta, craning their long necks to look back at their friends impounded for shearing.

“The ground is parched Papa,"  said Alfanetta.