Lake Titicaca

First off, let me just say how thankful I am for my wonderful traveling companions. We hit a rough patch a few days ago, and luckily Cory, Katie, and Jeanne were there to support me.

On Feb 1st, I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday only to find out that she was at St. Joseph´s Hospital. My dad had had a heart attack. Now, by itself, this is a scary situation, but being thousands of miles away... I don´t need to try to convey the fear, shock, and helplessness that creates. Thankfully, they caught it early enough, and it looks like he should be okay. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers.

The next day, we boarded our overnight bus to Puno, the folklore and festival capital of Peru, located on Lake Titicaca. At 12,500 ft above sea level, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, as well as the largest lake in South America. And, ironically, it looked a lot like northern Minnesota.

Lake Titicaca (which means ´rock or grey puma´) is home to many indigenous island communities, who have (more or less) maintained their way of life over the course of thousands of years. We were given the opportunity to take a boat tour of two such communities: the Uros community and Taquile island.

The Uros live in impressively constructed floating artificial islands made of totora reeds. They originally began constructing these floating communities as a defense against other warring indigenous groups. The Uros main industry (other than tourism) is fishing, and practice trade or sell their fish on the mainland. The Taquile people live on the island of Taquile, approx 7km long. It looked strikingly like the greek isles. The main industry (again, other than tourism) for the Taquile people is agriculture, and the island is full of manmade terraces for farming.

While I was very grateful for the opportunity to go and learn about these communites, I have to say, the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable. Seeing tourists stick their cameras into the faces of women and children without a word made me almost sick. There was no interaction, no regard for these people as human beings, it was as though they were objects. Objects to be photographed to show friends and family back home. It was more of the uncomfortable feeling that these people are forced to sell out their culture, their dress, their traditions, to tourists. Its a tough situation, because you want to support these communities, but at the same time, is this also spelling the demise of these cultures? I just wish it was more of a respectful responsible cultural exchange, rather than a sort of people-zoo, which is what it felt like.

My camera broke on this trip, so these are not my pictures, but I wanted to include some pictures to give you a taste of Lake Titicaca, the islands and the people. While it was uncomfortable, it was facinating learning about it all.

Gorgeous Lake Titicaca

The floating islands of the Uros
Uros floating islandsTaquile Island

Taquile men (the red cap means they are married)

**Sidenote- in Cuzco we saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and there was one particular part that spoke to me, especially with regards to this trip. For those of you who dont know, its about a man who ages in reverse- born old, dies young. Anyways, at the end of the film, he writes a postcard to his daughter as he is at the end of his life (yet it in the body of a 20something) backpacking in India and elsewhere around the world. To me, this quote is inspiring and something that I wish for myself, my children, my family, and my friends. He writes:

¨For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. ¨