SOUVENIR

Acting executive editor Danielle Groen brings back a fluffy reminder of Peru’s Sacred Valley.

A suitcase-friendly alpaca from Lima.

“I hadn’t realized until I arrived in Peru how perfectly calibrated the country is to all my favourite things. I enjoy a potato; here, they have 4,000 kinds. I fancy a tart, frothy cocktail; they pioneered the pisco sour. I dig a long hike in thinning air past snow-dipped peaks and glassy lagoons; the Sacred Valley delivers. In fact, it was on just such a hike that I suddenly found myself sharing the trail with a crowd of alpacas, all long-lashed and blissed-out and comically adorable. And since I’m as much a fan of kitschy souvenirs as I am cute animals, I haggled (poorly) for this fuzzy fellow at a Lima market before heading home. Now he sits on my desk, peering around my computer, perpetually delighted to come across me again.”

AROUND$8/ ENVIRON8$, MERCADOINDIO,