Mara returns to the Mountains

[wondering]

Yes, got it! Thanks! Who would ever have guessed Mara would prevail!

[Sue (Ayt)]

Isn't it amazing how animals can compensate for lost senses? Wow - It is like their other senses, including intuitive senses, develop to compensate.
Mara is a great example of this!

[Anna70]

Oh WOW, I'm so happy to see sweet Mara doing so incredibly well!

[Bill Ryan]

More light relief, in case any might be needed.

The other day, we hiked up to a high valley which is quite remote: no trails, no people... just wild llamas.

First, here's Mara happily wading around in the high lake we discovered there:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/high_lake_panorama.jpg)

And after that, we encountered quite a large herd of llamas, all on high alert and watching us carefully:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/llamas_1.jpg)

At full telephoto:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/llamas_2.jpg)

And here's the funny part. Mara could clearly sense them, even at quite a distance, but of course she couldn't see them and was sniffing around everywhere. (You can see them in the photo just to the upper right of center.) Here she is, looking for them in totally the wrong direction.


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_and_the_llama.jpg)

[Harmony]

How wonderful the llamas have a place to drink even though the mountainsides look drier than usual. The water is clear and Mara looks so at home just wading around in the lake. There are two water birds a little to the right on the bank behind Mara, it's a wonderul place and seems so peaceful.

[Kryztian]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
And after that, we encountered quite a large herd of llamas, all on high alert and watching us carefully:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/llamas_1.jpg)

I love the llamas!

I guess the wild ones are extremely shy of people. Are the other places you might see more tame ones in Ecuador? Do people keep them as pets?

Are the any vicunas up there?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Kryztian (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
And after that, we encountered quite a large herd of llamas, all on high alert and watching us carefully:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/llamas_1.jpg)

I love the llamas!

I guess the wild ones are extremely shy of people.

Yes, they're really shy, and it's unusual to be able to get very close. Mara and I hiked up to the exact same remote high valley just this morning, and to my immense delight we encountered what was surely at least some of the same herd of llamas again, in almost the same spot, just a few hundred yards away from where they were last time.

It was very hot and dry, and I'm guessing that they want to be as high up as possible (to stay cool!) while also staying quite close to the highest water around. (In the next couple of days I'll post a few more photos. )

Posted by Kryztian (here)
Are the other places you might see more tame ones in Ecuador? Do people keep them as pets?

Not as pets, but a few mountain farmers so seem to keep one or two. (But I don't know what for!)

Posted by Kryztian (here)
Are the any vicunas up there?

Great question. These are vicunas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicu%C3%B1a
https://communities.springernature.c...adorian-vicuna



In theory (as best I know), there may very well be vicunas up there too. The environment would be ideal for them, as it is for alpacas which I also see sometimes. But my best answer is that I've never got close enough to what look from the distance to be llamas to be able to know for sure!

[Bill Ryan]

More llamas, specially for Kryztian:

But this time only two, clearly a couple. And also this time, Mara sensed them clearly, even though they were a couple of hundreds yards away. You can make them out in the distance in the center of the photo.


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...two llamas.jpg)

And quite a nice telephoto shot:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/two_llamas.jpg)[/I]

[Wookie]

When i was just a little Wookie my family was living in Peru. On a trip from Lima to Pulcallpa we made a pit stop atop the Andes. I was quite startled by a llama poking its head up as I relieved myself off the side of a moutain. At least it didnt spit on me

[Kryztian]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
More llamas, specially for Kryztian:

Thank you Bill and Mara for thinking of me when you spotted the llamas!

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Kryztian (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
More llamas, specially for Kryztian:

Thank you Bill and Mara for thinking of me when you spotted the llamas!

And some more, which we saw yesterday. This time Mara heard them (they make a noise a little like bleating sheep), but they were quite some way away. At first I thought they may have been alpacas, because this small herd was all white. In the first photo you can just see them in the distance, little white specks to the right of the image just below the shadow line, which Mara is 'looking' at.


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...ite_llamas.jpg)

And here they are, at full telephoto:


(high-resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/white_llamas.jpg)

[Bill Ryan]

No llamas today. But we had a bit of an adventure.

After a record 147 days of drought, it rained heavily last night. (Yay!) The morning dawned dry but overcast, and we headed for the mountains anyway. We were 10 minutes past the high waterfall — which had been a tiny trickle for weeks, but today was an exciting but passable raging torrent — when the cloudy skies opened and we were hit by a violent hailstorm, something pretty rare and which Mara had never encountered in all her life.

With my head down, and thinking it surely couldn't last long, I continued up the valley (the 'Puma valley', as I've named it) — and then suddenly realized Mara was no longer behind me. I stopped and called her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

For the next hour, with the hail now turning to heavy icy rain, I hiked all over the valley, which is safe but has a lot of complex features, shouting her name continually. She was just nowhere. This had never happened before.

I knew that my friends, with their two trail-running children Noam and Pema, were somewhere high on the mountain, having set out a couple of hours earlier. Thankfully, I met them coming down, as soaking wet and freezing cold as I now was. They were immediately very concerned and so we split up to search up, down, and along every side valley where Mara might possibly have gone.

It was Pema (the 11-year old superstar athlete) who found her, shivering in the long grass a full mile from where I'd last seen her, half way down towards the road. She'd somehow made her own way back across the raging waterfall, blind, wet, cold, frightened and lost, knowing somewhere in her doggy brain that if she kept on going down she should be safe and that somehow this would take her home.

Pema, on her own and with no lead or string available, held on to her collar firmly and led her gently back to our vehicles.

All ended well. The entire thing was my fault, of course, as in the sudden heavy hailstorm I should never have kept my eyes off her. This is the only photo I have (a very wet one!), showing my friends with Mara warming themselves by the fire in the small restaurant back at the trailhead. Little Pema, the hero of the story, is at the very back, second from the right.

[wondering]

Bless her, she must have been so relieved when Pema showed up and then she was joined by everyone...such a happy ending.

[RunningDeer]

Mara, the super dog.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by RunningDeer (here)

Mara, the super dog.

A wonderful image!

We went back there today, but to the opposite side of the main valley where we had an easy hike just for an hour. Mara was quite unaffected by her adventure, and was totally happy the entire time.

From there, I took this photo, so I could show what Mara the super dog had done, all on her own, wet, cold, lost and 100% blind. (The dotted line ends at the point where she was found by Pema.)

Her path down out of the high 'Puma Valley' was the only safe route (despite the swollen waterfall), the same way we always reach the valley and then return home again. Somehow she'd remembered the whole safe way back down towards the road and had navigated it all alone despite not being able to see a thing.


(high resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara's_route_home.jpg)

[RunningDeer]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

(high resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara's_route_home.jpg)

Bill, I’m in awe of your and Mara’s stamina.


A book could be written on “The Adventures of Mara and her Life Long Friend Bill”.

[Bill Ryan]

I posted this video at the very start of this thread. That was the first time Mara had returned to the mountains. My friends and I were watching her very carefully all the way, and the video was taken with my friend's drone.

What Mara did three days ago was reverse all this entirely on her own. It's worth taking a quick look at that again. The exciting part starts at 1:51, the only way to get to and from the high Puma Valley.

(I'm not sure if I could have done this blindfold as a relatively intelligent human, even if I'd been on my hands and knees taking all day to be sure not to fall over the cliffs by the waterfall. )

https://projectavalon.net/Mara_retur..._Mountains.mp4

[grapevine]

You must be very fit Bill; that's quite a pace you're both keeping up and at high altitude too. . .

[Bill Ryan]

More llamas today. This time, they were close enough that Mara absolutely knew they were there.


(high resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_sees_the_llamas.jpg)

And here's the money shot. (Spot which one is the super-cutie! )


(high resolution image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/llamas_up_close.jpg)

[wondering]

They are so, so beautiful.