ALIVE TOURISM IN PUNO For six years during the nineteen seventies, an Englishman called Tristan Jones sailed on the lowest and the highest waters on earth: the Dead Sea and Lake Titicaca respectively. His experiences are a tribute to the adventurous spirit of mankind. The first time he saw dawn from the peninsular of Capachica, on Titicaca, Jones wrote: "Under the shining peaks the glaciers, purple and violet, seemed like curtains that descended to the misty foot of the mountains and the intense emerald green of the lake shore...It is the most exquisite landscape I have ever seen"'. Today, in this "exquisite landscape", a series of communities, islanders and shore-dwellers, both Quechua and Aymara speakers, welcome visitors with their own culture, their desire to better themselves, aware that they have a resource that is unique in the world. To find these projects you have to go to the city of Puno. In the city, hard by the port, travelers are surprised to learn that the part of the lake in front of him, together with the Huancane areas, forms the Titicaca Protected Area. And there is no protection for this area of the lake. An unstoppable toing and froing of passenger and cargo vessels is devoid of all control or vigilance. Someone explained to us that the green mass of vegetation that at some places completely covers the water is the result of pollution by the waste poured daily into the lake. It is known as "Duckweed" and grows were sewage from the city is discharged into the water. The Bay of Puno is in fact a great depository of sewage and waste, especially the huge amount of garbage carried by the river Coata from the chaotic and overpopulated city of Juliaca. Located on the Collao Plateau, Titicaca (12,500 feet above sea level} is the highest navigable lake in the world. In 1978, when its level of biodiversity, scenic beauty and the traditional use of natural resources in harmony with the environment came to be valued, the Titicaca Protected Area was created. This protected area is also a RAMSAR site, being a particularly representative example of natural wetlands that are characteristic of a unique bio-geographical region. Titicaca Protected Area is located in the provinces of Huancane and Puno. It covers 89,400 acres and consists of two sectors: Ramis, in the province of Huancane, covering 17,370 acres and Puno, in the province of the same name, which covers 71, 660 acres. All of this looks good on paper, but what is certain is that the port including the Bay of Puno does not appear to be receiving any protection whatsoever. LLACHON AND TITlKAYAC We travel by road northwards from Puno, through great reed beds in which ducks and other waterfowl swim and nest, on the way to the Capachica peninsular. In the far south of the peninsular we find our first destination, a community called Llachon, which operates a living tourism project linked to ideas for conservation. We are 48 miles from Puno, though what we see here bears no relation to the bustle we have left behind in the city. You can also reach Llachon by boat, which is a fascinating trip because the first thing you see is a great eucalyptus wood with a high hill in the background called Auki Carus. At the jetty a group of inhabitants welcome the visitors and invite them to eat potatoes that are among the finest on the planet. We eat the potatoes sifting at a table in the main community building, with Valentin Quispe and Lucia Illasaca, members of this Quechua-speaking community, which has maintained its identity thanks to the project managed by the Llachon Tourism Promotion Association. You can spend a long time at table, especially if you want to see a unique sunset, before retiring to your warm and comfortable room built for travelers capable of appreciating a warm human experience. You can spend many more hours on excursions in the kayaks that Valentin offers to his visitors in association with private adventure tourism companies identified by a perfect marketing slogan: Titikayak. THE OTHER TAQUILE Now we take to the lake to visit the island of Taquile. This was the site, in the nineteen seventies, of a pioneering community tourism project, based on the collective spirit of this ancient settlement of weavers, fishermen and farmers. Time and an inadequate management policy, turned Taquile into a chaotic destination, where the original community links gave way to individualism and pressure from travel agencies. Nevertheless, a sector away from the main tourist area, called Huayllano - Collino, is experiencing something interesting. In 2000 the organization "Minka Fair Trade", which represents a network of organizations that produce handicrafts and farm products, began to work on a tourism development project that would not repeat the errors of Taquile, concentrating on offering textile handicrafts of truly first class quality. In four years Minka has prevented important textile traditions from dying out, supported community members in publishing books about their art and assembling collections of traditional folk tales. The institution formed committees to offer meals, guides, fishing and lodgings tourists. Today, Isidro Huatta, together with Alipio and Elias, all members of the community, are running the project with the company All Ways T ravel as their strategic partner. Making good use of all these ingredients, they have designed a tourism experience conducted by the community itself. This is very different from the classical Taquile experience, because there are fewer tourists, and you lodge with families and share their meals. Travelers learn a lot about the art of weaving and can enjoy the most extraordinary scenery on foot in a couple of hours, there are no roads and there is no pressure. With one eye on the tourism trends developing in today's world, the contrast between Taquile and Huayllano -Collino is a very good illustration of what mass tourism - and depredation -can mean to the challenge to maintain the authentic, offered to select and segmented groups of travelers. THE ANAPIA ARCHIPELAGO Anapia is situated on the Lesser Lake, which shares its waters with Bolivia. It is an archipelago of islands which has as its background the Cordillera Real, the one which gave our own Tristan Jones such pure joy when he saw it. First we go to the uninhabited island of Yuspique, where one hundred and twenty vicunas live in absolute freedom. Some years ago, the community of Anapia received a donation from the National Council of South American Camelids (CONACS) a group of 19 vicunas, which have since reproduced to form the herds we see moving about among the ichu grass. "You should see the vicuna when they go to bathe in the, lake at nightfall. The male leader of the herd enters first and all the other animals follow him, even the newborn ones, shivering with the cold. Any animal that fails to enter the water is separated from the herd for ever and it is these that we can see roaming alone" explains Jose Flores, an anthropologist from the community who is now an ecotourism leader in the southern section of Lake Titicaca. The Anapia project started in 1997 when Eliana Pauco, who runs a tour business, met the some Jose Flores who told us about the vicunas in the night. Jose was looking for opportunities to generate extra income for his village and Eliana, o competitive advantage for her agency. Once the principle features had been designed, the community was consulted and told about the scheme's opportunities, disadvantages and the expectations arising from this activity and the potential of the archipelago for creating o center of good tourism for the lake. In parallel, they began taking tourists to the islands, first as a pilot scheme. The "Treasures of Wiñaymarka" project was born. In addition to Yuspique, the archipelago contains the islands of Ccano, Ccana, Anapia and Patahuata. Two communities own the archipelago: Ccana and Suana; the population - some two hundred families living off farming, livestock and fishing -are concentrated on Anapia, an island. In addition to Yuspique, the archipelago contains the islands of Ccano, Ccana, Anapia and Patahuata. Two communities own the archipelago: Ccana and Suana; the population - some two hundred families living off farming, livestock and fishing -are concentrated on Anapia, an island which from colonial times was farmed by people of mixed Spanish and Indian stock. Anapia, also known by the Quechua name Wiñaymarca (place that is eternally young), is the center of the living tourism project. Twelve local families open their houses to visitors. There are no hotels or lodges and there are no plans for building any as this would destroy the essence of the scheme, which is to share the lives of the families involved. The home of Julia, is one of those that are part of the project. It has an extra bedroom next to the family dining room, where she puts up visitors. A few yards away, across the patio, Julia has built a surreal and spotlessly clean bathroom within a covered corral. Visitors arrive first at Yuspique around midday, when community members take them to see the vicuna, before climbing to d vantage point where the ancient inhabitants of this area built a stone circle to record the ebb and flow of nature and agriculture. In the same island the ancestral system of crop rotation is still practiced today as a form of soil management. Potato, beans, barley and fallow, year after year, so that the earth does not use its nutrients as happens with monoculture. Yuspique also has underground stone tombs belonging to the Pukina culture. They have already been registered as part of the nation's heritage by INC; nevertheless, groups of policemen regularly raid them at night, searching for the treasure of Manco Capac or Mama Ocllo. On returning to the jetty, visitors receive an agreeable surprise. The ladies of the community have laid a table under a colorful canopy. On the table is an aromatic huatia. The huatia is the pachamanca of this area, made using potatoes and broad beans only. All the same, some extraordinary pejerrey, caught in the lake a couple of hours beforehand and fried, accompany this ancestral feast. After the meal is a trip by sailing boat between the islands, a moment to remember for the rest of your life. TALK IN THE LIBRARY In the evening, Jose meets the visitors in the small village library, which is slowly expanding with contributions by visitors. Here we find out that there are already some groups who come back regularly and a number of European schools have chosen Anapia for mind-broadening field trips. Here everyone talks and shares. It is clear to everyone that this is a participatory experience. The company, run by Pauca and the community use their own resources to teach themselves and take care of their visitors. But it is clearer still that there is a unique spirit among the ladies, among children, young people and adults aimed at establishing a friendly relationship of exchange and mutual understanding with the visitors and this makes a quality experience. The results are good to see. Anapia was chosen as a case study and presented at the Quebec World Tourism Summit in May 2002. Jose Flores, president of the Association for Sustainable Tourism Development in Anapia (ADETURS) was elected in the preliminary South American workshops as the representative of indigenous South American peoples at the same event. In 2003, the Peruvian Network for Social Science Research gave an award to Treasures of Wiñaymarca as the best example of participatory management in Peru, as part of its Joining Forces competition sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The project's achievements so far are very encouraging. From no tourists at all in 1997, in seven years more than eighty groups from New Zealand, Germany, England, Switzerland, Spain and Italy have visited the island. The community continues to improve the accommodation, gardens and bathrooms to improve comfort and the enjoyment of its visitors. Agreements have also been reached on the teaching of food preparation skills with Caritas. As an association, ADETURS has managed to have potable water installed for the inhabitants by FONCODES. This confirms to the community that the organization, added to a good sustainable tourism project, has proved an especially efficient development tool. What is significant is that, standing on the site where the community now receives its visitors, Tristan Jones wrote: "Whilst the sun set, the whole range was turned into brilliant gold and the glaciers below the peaks glowed a deep turquoise blue, beneath this vast extent of color the lake shone emerald green".