Without wanting this to sound disrespectful, ¨Disneyland¨ is what immediately came to mind when visiting the Floating Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca. Whilst they are all very legit and have been doing so for a very long time, the ¨show¨ was so slick, the colours so bright and the presentation so polished that we had trouble investing emotionally in their story, even though we wanted to.

The Uros islands are at 3810m above sea level and are just five kilometers west from Puno port. Around 2,000 descendants of the Uros were counted in the 1997 census, although only a few hundred still live on and maintain the islands; most have moved to the mainland. Maybe it´s due to this that the whole effort didn´t quite grab us. As much as we wanted to be fascinated about the way they build and maintain their islands using the reeds, no mean feat by any stretch of the imagination… but the whole thing just had such an orchestrated feel about it that we were not engaged, sadly.

So much so that when we were sailing away, the lined up family sang one or two songs and then finished with a resounding ¨hustalavista baby!¨
Blimey; chuckle chuckle!

Fortunately when it was time to board our bus to Copacabana, Bolivia, we were ready. Except, Daughter and I already had people in our seats! After much toíng and froíng by management, we eventually sat in our rightful seats, next to our travel buddies, ready to take Bolivia by storm…