Photos

Another old photo from my past travels, taken with my old film camera, Canon EOS400 with 28-200mm Tamron lens. It dates all the way back to 1999, when I was backpacking around South America. I found the slide with this little girl in my desk drawer at work yesterday. I remembered I put it there to scan it, make a print, frame it and hang it on a wall in my apartment. So I thought I’d hang it on this website first.

This little girl peaking from behind the door of her straw house is a member of the Uros people, living on the Lake Titicaca ...living literally ON the lake. The Uros make their own islands, floating, anchored islands made of dried reeds of totora plant, growing in the lake in abundance. They use the plant for everything, as building material for houses and boats, as well as medicinal purposes. For more on Uros people, see Wikipedia, or simply google it.

Excursions for tourists are organized from a nearby town on the mainland, Puno. Nothing fancy, just a simple boat, sailing around these straw islands, landing in one of them to let the tourists get the feel of the swampy straw ground beneath their feet. I’m still not sure how I feel about having attended that excursion (or any of that kind). Is it offensive; is it like a human zoo? Or is it a two-way street, where both sides benefit from the experience? Uros themselves decide which islands are open to public, they sell souvenirs to the tourists, and in return, we learned something new about the world. It was a little fast-food-like for both sides, not perfect, but still felt somehow balanced. I guess balance is not bad?