It’s Saturday and today we leave Bolivia for Perú in what will be my last international border crossing until I return home to the U.S. This crossing was unique for me because we walked from one country to the other – something I’ve never done with the possible exception of walking from the U.S. into Canada when I visited Niagara Falls as a youngster. The van from the hotel took us as far as the Bolivian immigration office at Kasani – a short ride of about nine kilometers. After we got our exit visas Berner arranged for our luggage to cross by rickshaw into Perú
while we walked perhaps 200 meters to Peruvian immigration where a well-staffed office quickly processed a line of people despite the tendency for the officers to pose seemingly odd and random questions such as asking me my marital status.
How an American sponsored invasion changed Lake Titikaka
I’ll admit at the start that his section header is a bit dramatic and overstated but decisions made 80 or 90 years ago have altered not only the lake but the lives and economy of the people living in the area. This American “invasion” began innocently enough in the middle of the 19th century when a team of British explorers visited the region and surveyed the lake’s native fish in 1872.
They described one species of catfish and 19 species of killifish or karachi, as they are known locally. All of the fish were small and bony which led the British team to deem the lake too unproductive to support the native populations. (A 2014 study published in Science of the Total Environment claims Lake Titikaka supports 30 living and two extinct species of killifish and a second species of catfish. These fish are found nowhere else on the planet. Given the lake’s altitude and relative isolation, such a lack of diversity should be unsurprising.)
Then in 1935, Peruvian and Bolivian officials met and decided that they should consider introducing supplemental fish to the lake they share. They had come to agree with that half century old analysis that karachi alone wasn’t a sufficient food source to sustain the local (and growing) population. But rather than the lake providing mere sustenance it’s also likely that they also saw an economic opportunity for the region so they reached out to the U.S. government for help.
Within a year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent one M.C. James to survey the area. He concluded that North American fish could be transplanted to Lake Titikaka and would thrive there. In 1938, the U.S. sent a half million trout fingerlings and four times as many whitefish eggs. The whitefish died but the invasive trout thrived and soon thereafter changed the ecology of the lake.
As so often happens when humans try to transplant species to an environment in which they haven’t evolved, the new species alters the evolutionary balance. In due course, the transplanted trout became the top predator in the lake outcompeting the karachi that had, without scientific analysis and governmental assistance, sustained the local population for centuries.
But while the people of the region had one traditional food source disrupted, the trout did indeed bring economic opportunity. Although many try to maintain a more traditional lifestyle and fish by line, today
pens of farmed trout can be spotted from many viewpoints around the lake. While the Uros people (whom we will meet shortly) and certainly the people of Puno eat fried karachi, it’s unlikely you’ll find it on the typical restaurant menu. What you will find in nearly every restaurant along the Altiplano that offers fish is trucha (trout). And you will find it prepared in myriad ways. (I believe if you order ceviche in the high Andes, the central fish portion will most likely be trout.)
It’s possible that the boost in income has allowed some people to thrive rather than merely subsist but even that has brought with it problematic unintended consequences. The lake we saw on our visit is far from the pristine clear lake from which a mere three decades ago people drank the water. Wastewater pollutants running from burgeoning urban areas like Puno or even cities like La Paz and El Alto which are part of Lake Titikaka’s watershed, from unregulated manufacturing, and even from upstream farms where, at the urging of North American NGOs farmers have switched from using manure to using chemical fertilizers are all assaulting the lake that was already being over fished.
(Increases in tourism have had the same push and pull on the people and resources of the region. The presence of tourists that pumps money into the economy and helps raise living standards also strains systems and resources.)
And then, of course, there is the issue of climate change. Increased frequency and length of the El Niño Southern oscillation weather pattern prompts lengthier periods of drought and higher temperatures that are also damaging the lake. As I noted in a previous post, the Desaguadero is the only river that drains Lake Titikaka but it siphons only five percent of the lake’s volume. All the other water loss occurs through evaporation which happens more intensely because of the lake’s elevation. Add less rainfall and higher temperature into the mix and some climatologists believe the lake could disappear by 2050.
Is it authentic or just a show? And does it really matter?
Seen from above, as in this satellite view from Google maps where lake sediment, thick totora reeds, and pollution create the illusion of proximity to land and makes them look a little like a string of pearls lining an inlet,
the Floating Islands aren’t quite as awe inspiring as they are in actual experience. Though still several kilometers from any land, the islands are, indeed, much closer to Puno than they have historically been. In fact, just 30 years ago they were more than 10 kilometers farther into the lake and thus considerably more isolated than they currently are.
A major storm devastated the islands sometime in the 1980s and prompted the people to rebuild closer to the land. But while this new proximity to the city brought heightened safety, it also brought heightened curiosity. And that heightened curiosity brought tourism. And, at least for me, this type of tourism raises questions even if I only think about them after the fact.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a tour that has offered a chance to observe or participate in a region’s traditional lifestyle. It also isn’t the first time I’ll wonder about the authenticity of what we see and experience.
In this instance, one needn’t be particularly observant to notice that the Uros certainly have adopted modern technology. Our guide, for example, pointed to the solar panels that supply many of their islands with electricity. The presence of the traditional reed boats is clearly more for the tourists. (We were offered the chance to take a boat ride for a small fee.) However, look around and you notice that everyone seems to have a motorized boat. Although they try not to be obvious, I think I even spied someone with a cell phone.
I certainly don’t think the Uros should be deprived of modern technology but it stands in stark contrast with the way our guide presented them as people who maintain a traditional almost subsistence style of life eking out a living by fishing the ever-dwindling supply of fish in the lake and supplementing their income by welcoming tourists and selling what they weave or otherwise make.
But if they’re doing the latter, how can they manage the former? Perhaps each family takes their turn hosting. There are, as you can see, plenty of islands over which to spread the tourism business. The women are dressed in traditional garb – and we saw the same with the cholitas in La Paz – but is this what they wear on the days they’re not hosting tourists or would they wear something a bit more practical? In the end, I treat it like a movie or a show. I give it my willing suspension of disbelief, trust that there’s at least some level of authenticity, and lose myself in the experience.
I’ll share details of that experience in the next post.