Lake Titicaca, part 2: Peru - from the surreal to the very real

   On the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca there are more tourists and seemingly less poverty.  You can feel the magnetic effect of the tourist mecca of Machu Pichu only 6 hours down the road, radiating wealth to its nearby constellation of Incan sites and natural wonders. 

   On Easter Monday we spent the day on Lake Titicaca visiting the Island of Taquile in the afternoon, having previously experienced the cartoonish cultural encounter that draws in tourists on the floating island of Uros.  It was as though the tourist board had designed every aspect of the interaction. 

   As we stepped foot on the spongey floor of the island we were greeted with song by seven women in traditional dress.  They ushered us into an open space between the huts, loosely attached to the island and as portable as my Goddaughter’s wendy house.  Here we heard from the village president – the man in the most colourful woolly hat – how the islanders have lived for centuries, regularly rebuilding their islands from fresh reeds and living off the bounty of the lake.  The visit was rounded out with a photo opportunity in the local clothing and a trip on a ceremonial boat to the island’s main gift market. 

   The strange thing was that it was all pretty real.  Chatting with the couple who invited us into their home and dressed us in their clothes, we found that there are in fact 1,900 people living like this on moveable islands anchored in the shallows of Lake Titicaca.  As we coursed through the reeds we spotted imported livestock, mainly pigs, rooting around on smaller island constructions.  The interaction with the locals was very much for show but quite apart from this were the facts of their daily lives: cutting reeds, hunting ducks, catching fish and otherwise being immersed in the isolated and close-knit associations of village life. 

   By comparison, the proper attached-to-the-bottom island of Taquile was a return to normality.  More Easter celebrations greeted us, in which the locals were dressed in colourful and outlandish costume, having something of a battle of the marching bands. 

   That night we were early to bed, ready for our bus ride to Cusco the following morning.  Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of our evening.  My stomach rumbling ominously I spent most of the time in our (thank God) private fully-tiled bathroom.  Having no hot water (it didn’t make it hot to the fourth floor, it seems) had been an annoyance for the first two days of our stay.  When the cold water running to the cistern shut down in the middle of an episode with a gastric bug it was somewhat more of a problem.

   I was in no fit state to travel in the morning and it was only thanks to Kizzy’s tender loving care and my mum’s thoughtful supply of Loperamide that I was able to be transported the following day.  Certainly we were due a bout of traveller’s sickness and of all the places to get it a lovely hotel room in Puno was the best we could have chosen.  For future reference, at times of such distress, cold tiled surfaces are your friend and Loperamide stops you up (or in my case turns off the tap) for about 4 days.  And Kizzy is gracious enough not to laugh and take photos.