I’ve been to Peruvian mountains recently where they farm vicuñas and alpacas and can confirm they live in pretty poor conditions in a very harsh environment; high altitude barren mountains. The majority of income comes from tourism, and it’s very common to see villagers try to sell you goods made of alpaca/llama/vicuna wool. Funny enough, most shops in the bigger cities tend to sell stuff made in china because it’s significantly cheaper to obtain
How did they farm vicuñas? Common knowledge here in the andes is that they aren’t domesticated and don’t reproduce in captivity. That’s why their fur costs so much.
Afaik alpacas can be farmed, but llamas are fully domesticated instead and easy for having larger livestock.
Pretty much Chaccu. Free festival. It's usually in June. You can make a trip of it going to Paracas, Ica's dunes, Nazca Lines and finish in Pampas Galeras.
Keep in mind in Galeras there's nothing. Just a post of the National reserve and that's it. It's also at 4K meters of altitude so walking for hours could be a whole experience.
>they live in pretty poor conditions in a very harsh environment; high altitude barren mountains.
But isn't that just the Peruvian mountains? If your statement was supposed to be relative ("there are good conditions in <x>") then I'm not sure what you expect.
If it was supposed to be absolute, then you're correct but stating something that hasn't changed since long before humans started living in the area is hardly worthwhile.
I understood the whole statement to mean that both the physical environment of the mountains and the conditions for living in them (for both alpacas and people) are difficult.
As in, "the mountains are a harsh environment and people are living in poor conditions upon them" which would suggest an even more limited set of circumstances than being just poor somewhere else or just on those mountains but not having to depend on them for everyday living.
