Living over Water - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 258

Patios important not only as social/functional space (washing/bathing/processing
fish) but also for circulation between houses

FIGURE 14.26 Functional relationship of patios to buildings.

LAKE TITICACA
Lake Titicaca is located on the Andean Altiplano situated between Peru and Bolivia.
The lake is about 200 km long and 65 km wide and covers a surface area of over
8,000 km 2 . And at nearly 4,000 m in elevation, it is famously the world's highest
navigable water body. Archaeological remains indicate several islands in the lake
were inhabited an incredible ten thousand years ago, with over two thousand years of
successive civilizations existing around the lake (Escandell-Tur 2003; Figure 14.30).
Most significantly, the lake is integral to Andean culture and has been venerated as
the birthplace of the first Incas (Stanish 2003). There is an important history of lay-
ered pilgrimage routes upon the landscape (Bauer 2001; Mayell 2001; Salles-Reese
1997). Mining has taken place since the Spanish Conquest, and today the lake and
its shorelines are a center of intense commercial activities including fishing, alpaca
and llama herding, production of crafts, and, increasingly, tourism (Jenkins 2003;
Orlove 2002).
Today the major lakeside town of Puno is home to dozens of tourist agencies
offering a plethora of packages to appeal to everyone from the affluent tour groups
to independent backpackers, many of whom are on their way to or back from visiting
Machu Picchu. Satiated with Peru's incredibly rich archaeological heritage, increas-
ing numbers of foreigners are traveling out onto the lake in order to experience life
on the islands. These outings offer contrasting views about how tourism can either
support or impair indigenous culture, and in this respect provide lessons for how
tourism might one day be regulated in the marshlands of Iraq.
Isla Taquile lies 30 or so km away from Puno at the edge of the central basin of the
lake. Seven km long, the island rises like a ziggurat above the impossibly blue waters
of the lake, with views of the mountains in Bolivia as a backdrop (Figure 14.31). The
thermoregulatory effect of the large lake creates a microclimate favorable for agriculture.
The twelve hundred residents work growing potatoes, oca, maize, and quinoa in ter-
races (Figure 14.32). These advantages have long been recognized as the island has been