San Francisco Pass. International border that unites us to Chile. 4,700 m.s.n.m.
The band waits without impatience. "They will arrive around eleven o'clock" clarifies Carlos Rodriguez who is in charge of the maneuver. Vicuñas are expected to appear from behind some hills. Part of the team is coming from the north. The first ones appear far away, punctual. It is 11.00 a.m.
The Chacu is the ancestral technique of capturing vicuñas. The word is Quechua. The method, very old, heritage of the whole world. It was even used to hunt mammoths. Now the vicuñas are no longer hunted, they are only locked in a corral, allowed to calm down for a day and sheared.
The whole process is very smooth. Almost in silence the muleteers walk down, leading the camelids towards the fences. These are arranged in such a way that they act as funnels that lead the animals to the corral. “In ancient times the relief itself was used to enclose them at the bottom of a ravine. Now we have fences. " Once inside, the doors are closed and one goes out to look for those to the west. “The fences, Carlos explains, are not disassembled, only what is the corral. However, not only the vicuñas but all the fauna get used to passing through huge doors that remain open until the next chaku. "
By orography and by extension, motorcycles and quadricycles are used to drive the west. Even the flat from where the operation is controlled herds from outside the fence. He kinda plays the role of the full back of a rugby team.
“The whole process has to be very calm to stress the vicuñas as little as possible. If they are they get very nervous they can try to flee through the wiring and hurt themselves. Cougars do the rest. Sometimes they even have heart attacks. "
None of that has happened this time. The tired and satisfied crew will take a break. Some six hundred vicuñas are waiting in the corral to be sheared in the next few days.
That will be another story.
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