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It was late 1983 and The United States designated Chile as a Foot and Mouth Free country, the only one at the time in South America. This meant that importations of ruminants could now be made through one of the USDA quarantine facilities, which at that time was either Newberg, or Los Angeles.
There were three of us, Kessling, Hunt and Pet Center, each had the capability to facilitate an import, but the question was, what would we bring in, for ruminants include cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and camelids. As it turned out, all three of us chose camelids. We all had some experience with Llamas, which were already in The United States at that time and the prices were quite high.
So the race was on. I got to Arica Chile no more than 3 days after my call form David my partner in Los Angeles, and went right up to Putre in the Altiplano searching for our animals. All the way up I thought I would certainly be the first, for I was already in Peru when the news broke and certainly had a head start. As we went through the Pueblos, we heard that there was already another Gringo there before us. I thought how was that possible, how could anyone beat me up there, for it takes a day just to drive up the mountain. He arrived by helicopter, they said just yesterday, but they did not know his name. Here I was some 14,000 feet up already having trouble breathing, and now this news really took my breath away. "A day late and a dollar short", that thought would follow me through every import. For many years I assumed it was one of Tom Hunt’s agents. Not until some ten years later would I discover that it was but a group form Germany, who already has some alpacas in Putre, which they raised for their fiber.
Kessling and Hunt’s animals were mainly llamas with really few Alpacas, for they knew that market well. Ours was only Alpacas, for we wanted to do something different, and differentiate us from the rest.
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