My coworker, Steve, recently returned (mostly intact) from a trip to Machu Picchu. We had a little impromptu slide show in the lunch room which nicely doubled the length of my lunch "hour", thanks Steve! All photos courtesy of Steve and his girlfriend Catherine.



The southern hemisphere has got us beat when it comes to exotic birds and rodents of unusual size.

(These are capybara in case the picture is too dark.)

However, I must say that when it comes to indigenous dogs, Australia is up to par with it's Dingos, much cuter than Coyotes, but not quite as cool as Arctic Wolves. South America, however, is way way way behind.

Naked dogs! Gross! You may already know about my dislike for the naked mole rat. As far as I'm concerned the only hairless mammals should be humans or water dwelling.

Anyway, here is the necessary Llama picture.

Apparently, Llamas got their name because of a misunderstanding. Similar to how the Kangaroo got it's name. The Spaniards on seeing Llamas for the first time asked the locals what they are called, "como se llama?" and the Indians, having no idea what was going on, simply repeated the last word. The story I heard, while in Australia, was that 'Kangaroo', in the language of the aboriginal tribe near Sydney meant "Go away" or something less nice.