On a boat made of reeds at the Uros floating islands in Lake Titicaca, Peru.
I was preparing to choose a day trip with my guide in the Lake Titicaca region of Peru. There were five options placed before me, and one specifically looked fascinating … it also happened to be the trip that the guide urged me to take. At the end of a day visiting a community living on the Uros Floating islands made entirely of reeds, (where the Uru people have lived for centuries,) the guide thanked me. With tears in his eyes, he thanked me for coming to visit his family (I had no idea!), and contributing to tourism in the area. It is such tourism, he told me, that afforded his family enough money to put him through school. It is also such tourism that inspired him to become a guide himself. This was the last generation of families that would live on the reeds because they all wanted to send their children to nearby Puno for a better life. They knew it would be the end of their way of life, but insisted that education and experience in the tourism industry (the only form of economic growth in the region) was a better way.
World on a Fork 