Basilicata: Our new home

We’ve arrived at our next host stay! This is the month of our trip that we knew the most about when we left the U.S. for the Med., so it’s the one that I’ve told most people about already. Our hosts, John and Hilary, have returned to England for Hilary’s daughter’s wedding. So for two more weeks we will be caring for their home and animals: one dog, one cat, and 23 alpacas.

Hilary & John with little Louis

Alan and I knew little-to-nothing about alpacas when we got here, but they’re relatively low-maintenance creatures and we received several full days of training before our hosts went away. In some ways I actually wish that the furry little guys required more interaction with us; they are so adorable but don’t really like to socialize with people. They’re very skittish and bounce away whenever anyone tries to touch their wonderfully soft fleece.

The adorably-fluffy females

That’s not to say that we don’t touch them anyway. While Hilary was still here, we got some hands-on contact with the alpacas because we helped her to organize two matings, to cut toenails, and to assist the vet in doing a blood test (The alpacas will be moved to the region of Puglia this winter, and by law all animals must be tested before being moved out of this area because there have been a few cases of a particular virus – Sorry, I’ve forgotten which one!).

Alpacas kick, but not hard, and they spit, but so far only at one another. Our primary difficulty with the animals, actually, is with the youngest of the herd, who is about seven weeks old. Quite a bit of his fleece has fallen out, particularly on his ears and around his legs, maybe because of mites or maybe an infection. He’s been treated for both, but while the fleece is growing back we put a little jacket around him during the night and periodically apply some ointment that is supposed to encourage regrowth. This requires catching the little guy twice daily, which can be really difficult. He’s so fast!

Because of the nature of alpaca-sitting, we won’t be doing any traveling during this host stay that requires more than five or six hours of being away from the house. But as you can see from the map below, a trip to the beach wouldn’t be too difficult. We’re kind of excited about being homebodies here, though, now that we have our own luxury kitchen (OMG a dishwasher!) and a pile of Greece research and planning to do.