This is a photo that we took while we were travelling around South America. We took one of the days trips out from Puno in Peru to see the islands on the lake. What starts off as a warm day can certainly catch some people out because at that altitude the temperature can drop quickly. It was to be the case on our return for some of the more lightly dressed people travelling on our little boat. What was a little unnerving was the fact that on the way back the engine stopped and it looked like it was due to not having enough fuel. It was all very Heath Robinson with the boat owner or employee messing around with a fuel hose in a plastic container being used as a fuel tank. Luckily there was enough at the bottom to restart what I seem to remember was a V8 engine and get us back to Puno. Spending the night floating around on an open back boat with a small cabin was not exactly something to look forward to. This was back in 1999 so forget the idea of , “has someone got reception?”, because nobody even had a phone. We forget how much technology and its distribution has changed in those intervening years.
The islands were very interesting. We visited the Uros floating reed islands which for someone like me and perhaps many others, having lived on solid ground and at ground level for all of my life did feel a little strange. We also visited a “real” island, that of Taquile that was reached after we moored, by a steep set of stairs in the rocks. Some found the climb arduous because they were not acclimatised to the altitude. It is an interesting society on the island in that men do all the knitting and we watched some of the locals watching a football match while many of the male onlookers did their knitting. Can you imagine that on the terraces of the Premier League clubs? Perhaps it would lead to calmer matches and less violence between the tribes of the football teams. It could also lead to a lot of local manufacture of home made garments and less consumption of fast fashion made by exploited third world labourers. Anything is possible, it is just what we are used, to however unlikely alternatives are likely to be.
We saw on Taquile the first of what are apparently now many solar panels. Quite rightly so the island community is getting access to electricity and all the useful technology such as fridge freezers. However, Taquile could be seen for a model of island Earth in that what is a sustainable level of population, energy use, tourism and development? Will it or even has it already got a luxury hotel because what is perceived as necessary is growth and development at any cost? We need to be answer these questions for both islands, Taquile and Earth.
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Paul Noël 