"Titikaka" means "gray puma", but is not a new senior party, but this rather famous and quite huge lake at over 3800 meters above sea level.
Here the Inca empire had its starting point. And we had two days island hopping.
It started on Uros. Uros are not islands in the classical sense, but man-made floating islands.
The irony: here, the natives had withdrawn, after new peoples have spread on the banks of the Titikaka .. And now the families live on Uros 24/7 of the tourists, to whom they present their craft and their traditions. This is how it works with the desired seclusion. A blatant change within just one or two generations. Thanks to solar technology, electricity is also available there.
It was always interesting. Precisely because something like "authenticity" hardly arises any more and one then worries how crass the change has to be for the people here.
Then we continued on the lake, on the island Amantani. There you stay overnight with the locals in Homestays. The host law rotates between the municipalities, so that everyone gets their small share of the tourist cake and at the same time it does not become the assembly line work.
You can tell on the island, that not everything revolves around the tourists, it is an incredibly peaceful and quiet place. There are no roads and cars, that alone makes it very quiet. Sheep everywhere, and you can not help but relax and enjoy the atmosphere.
Alone for financial reasons, the inhabitants rarely come to the mainland and you hardly need imagination that the city life would overwhelm most islanders completely.
At sunset we went to the Temple of Mother Earth (Pachamama), the highest point of the island, beautiful. The walk back, in fantastic light and without the group, was a highlight.
In the evening we went to the "disco". Our hosts dressed us up in traditional costumes (see photos), a local band played, and the atmosphere was not "hmm, what a touristic mummery", but totally funny and relaxed.
We stayed with Mikaela, whose age no one dared to ask. Because ... Well ... You know that: there someone looks like 85 and in the end it turns out that the hard, deprivation-rich life is to blame. And the person is only 65 ?!
The next day we went to Taquile, where we learned more about things like traditional shampoo and the sophisticated system of headgear during a longer walk and a delicious fish food. Educational holiday of relaxed nature!
