If flying isn’t stressful for you, I’m jealous. For the rest of us, Portland International Airport offers an animal therapy program featuring big, adorable llamas. Every few weeks, the fluffy creatures visit the terminal so travelers can pack their worries away for a moment or two. While more airports should launch their own llama cuddling services, we should keep mouth-to-mouth kissing at a minimum.
Portland’s airport hosts camelids, the biological family including llamas and alpacas. Beni, a llama, and Captain Jack, an alpaca, made a stop at the airport last week. Plenty of passengers were elated to see the cute animals, stopping to pet them and take pictures. However, the handlers allowed people to take things to the next level with a “carrot kiss.” Travelers can hold a carrot between their lips to offer to a camelid to eat. NPR asked one passenger about the experience:
Varun Kataria is at first apprehensive, but eventually persuaded. “Oh OK. I’ll try,” he laughs and offers up a carrot in his teeth to Beni the llama. “Well done!” says [a handler.} “Magical?”
“I don’t think I’ve put my mouth on an animal’s mouth before,” says Kataria, who is on his way home from a work trip. “It’s kind of a nerve wracking experience.”
Kataria says he’s feeling stressed after the travel, and feels preoccupied with plans for a party he’s throwing later for Diwali.
But after this moment, he says, “I feel good.” The experience of kissing a llama snapped him right out of his worries.
Portland International Airport is in a unique position to host animal therapy with a recent renovation including trees and other plant life indoors to create a relaxing environment for people and animals. Shannon Joy, the co-owner of the airport’s partner Mountain Peaks Therapy, said that llamas and alpacas are herd-oriented and must be trained extensively to work as therapy animals.
From the rush to find your gate and the fear of losing your luggage to dodging falling raccoons, flying is stressful. Sometimes, it’s for the best to stop, take a breather and pet a llama.