What a treat to see a Vicuna, whilst travelling Peru! These beautiful animals are famous for their exquisitely soft & hence expensive wool. They are found in Peru Northern Chille Bolivia & Northwestern Argentina. These delicate looking camelids are a shy & rare creature found in the wild & their wool is much sought after.
They can only be shorn 3 times a year & command very high prices for their wool. A scarf can cost around $1500 USD. There are several reasons why this wool is both so expensive & sought after. They only produce around .05kg of wool per annum. The wool itself is extremely fine & soft & they produce some of the finest wool fibres to be found in the animal world. Due to it’s properties of tiny scales on hollow air filled fibres which causes them to interlock trapping warm air, the wool is extremely warm.