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This was my first visit to Peru and I was obviously full of high hopes as to how emotional and moving it would be to finally visit Machu Picchu after many years of yearning to actually experience it first hand.

In reality, it was a fantastic and tremendously interesting experience but unless you are visiting very first/last thing there are obviously a lot of visitors all around, which can be a slight distraction. Now, don’t let that comment fool you into thinking that we weren’t impressed or that it didn’t live up to expectations….it did! It is a pretty unbelievable site and its location alone can only leave you speechless (and breathless).

Sometimes, however the outstanding highlight from a trip can sneak up on your ‘blindside’ and take you by surprise. Now, prior to going, I knew very little about Lake Titicaca other than it was the world’s highest navigable lake and it is located on the Altiplano. My knowledge of the Aymara Indians was also sketchy to say the least. So on the morning that we set out by boat from Puno to visit the Uros Islands little did I expect that it would turn out to be the highlight of our trip to this fabulous country!

The islands themselves are all build from reeds, billions of which grow in the area and the huge surprise (to the un-initiated) is that the islands are all literally floating on the lake. After a short journey by boat, we jump onto one of the many islands in the vicinity and it really is a strange experience to feel a slight bounce as you land on the reeds. The Indians that live on the islands greet you as long lost cousins and are just the friendliest people that you can ever meet and are all dressed in the beautiful highly coloured traditional attire of the region. After an explanation about their small community (9 of them inhabit this particular floating basketwork of reeds) you are invited into their home. This consists of a small reed hut with a bed and his/hers pegs to hang clothes down each side of the structure.

And here is where it hits you! There, in the corner, is a TV and a solar powered battery which is used for the TV and light in the home at night – only about 3 hours power is garnered each day, so they have to be pretty discriminatory about what the power is used for. The contradiction between modern technology and this simplistic way of life could not be starker!

The only income that the Indians have is from visiting tourists and they offer a selection of handcrafted wares to sell to you, all of the while still displaying a lovely smile on their faces. My wife and I found the visit both uplifting and humbling in equal quantities and it was a great reality check on the sometimes pampered existence that we can all live within (by comparison to these wonderful people). Our visit was rounded off by a 15 minute ‘journey’ on a traditional reed boat accompanied by a local male rower and his 4-5 year old daughter who sang ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ to us as we drifted across the lake and tried to take in all of this unforgettable scene against a stunning blue sky.

What an experience!