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TRAVEL - PERU
MARIA SCHUMACHER
THE REALITY OF MAKING ENDS MEET
I
must admit , I was a little apprehensive about visiting the Uros on Lake Titicaca . Tantalising photos in a travel magazine had put these unique islands , made entirely from reeds , firmly onto my bucket list years ago . But now that our motorcycle journey was taking us closer , and I was doing a little more research , I came across a lot of disappointed blog posts complaining that the once culturally immersive visits to the Uros had morphed into a money-grabbing charade for tourists . Were we too late to experience their true wonder ? Not easily put off by negative media , we decided to see for ourselves .
Lake Titicaca sits in the Andes at 3812m above sea level and is shared by both Peru and Bolivia . Hundreds of years ago , the Uru-Aymara people living on its shores first started building the islands to escape the ever-encroaching Inca empire . Since the islands float , they could be dragged far into the lake whenever danger arose . These days they stay close to the city of Puno on the Peruvian side .
Puno itself is more practical than pretty , and most hotels are not far from the harbour . Ice cream shops selling flavours like lucuma and tres leches did good business in the midday sun . Smells of fried trout escaped cantina-style restaurants tucked between tile shops and car repair places . Our short walk took us through street markets selling dayto-day items like sports shoes and plastic kitchenware , and then along a row of hopeful trinket stalls leading up to the dock .
Before we could figure out the various booths and information signs , a man approached us with all the info . That could be perceived as pushy , I suppose , but I felt it was more of a cultural difference . In the ‘ west ’ we are used to autonomously organising everything ourselves ,
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