Tuesday evening and have heard that flights to UK airports have resumed - thank goodness. Hopefully by Friday there will be only minimal delays if any - hopefully there will be no more eruptions from Iceland.
Had another good day today - went on a cruise on Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in S America, if not the world. We had been looking forward to visiting the floating Uros Islands, which are artificial reed islands that were first created and inhabited by indigenous people trying to escape from Inca rule when the Incas invaded this part of Peru. The islands are being continuously renewed by their inhabitants, who build up fresh reeds onto the old ones. The islands are anchored in place by large stones, and are all located in a cluster at one end of the lake. The hundreds of people who live on the islands follow traditional customs and activities (fishing, weaving, hunting fowl and boat building). When we arrived at the islands by boat we were rather dissappointed to find that they were very, very touristy, and indeed made most of their income by giving demonstrations of their way of life to the hundreds of tourists who visit every day. I found it all rather exploitative - the people themselves being exploited by the many tour companies, and us because we felt under great pressure to go along with it all. Anyway, we expressed our displeasure by not buying anything from the many stalls on display, much I think to their displeasure.
One good thing we did experience though was a short trip on one of the traditional reed boats the inhabitants make....they were like little Kontiki boats. The money we paid did I feel compensate for our failure to buy anything at the market.
Later we went on a long trip out over the lake towards the Bolivian side and visited a natural island where we had a traditional fish lunch which was actually very nice. Unfortunately, all the activities are never far from more demonstrations of traditional crafts - which by this stage we are heartily sick of!
On the up side we met some very interesting guys who were also on the trip - one was really interested in photography so it gave Daf someone who he could talk to intelligently about that sort of thing.
In the hotel for dinner tonight and we fly down to Lima tomorrow afternoon after yet another trip out in the morning to the ´funerary towers´. I´ll be so glad to get back to sea level as the oxygen levels up here are pretty thin!
Elwyn
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Tuesday, 20 April 2010
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