Something I did not expect to discover, sat basking in the sun’s fearsome, midday rays, on the top of a rickety boat ploughing its way through the azure water of Lake Titicaca in Peru, was how hard being a tourist can sometimes prove to be.
As far as I was previously aware, you just turn up in a country dragging your suitcase along behind you (or in my case, struggling to support the weight of your backpack, which has been forcibly tightened around your waist courtesy of industrial and deeply uncomfortable straps), and off you go. The world is there, and you explore it. Meet some locals, eat some food, experience some culture, and sleep in a variety of beds that aren’t quite as comfy as your bed at home… What could be simpler? However, something happened atop that boat that caused me to realise just what a naive, privileged fool I’d been. Being a tourist is a whole lot more complex than that.
To contextualise: this nautical tableu was but a small facet of my first experience of worldwide travelling – a pre-university trip around the world, as is quickly becoming a popular choice for young Brits looking to defer adult responsibilities for as long as possible. Due to an administrative error (I left it too late), I was rendered unable to book onto my first choice of Peru tour, which also happened to be the cheapest, and was forced to opt for a more expensive option. As a consequence, the dirty, insect-filled, jungle-hut, ramshackle-hostel nature of my trip thus far had made way for a life of guided tours and 3-star hotels. This purpose of this boat trip was to transport us back from a night spent staying with families who lived on an island in the lake. At first, I had hoped that this would be the most rustic and authentic part of the tour, a chance for us to really get to see what life was like in the most remote and rural parts of Peru. But the second we set foot on the island and were instantly met with the sight of a vast number of other tourists, all being shepherded towards various grinning, well-rehersed locals, I could see that I was sorely mistaken.
In the evening, our group were collectively offered the chance to venture to the plaza to watch a game of tourist v local football. As much as this sounded like high-octane fun, my travelling bud and I remained behind, determined to show our gratitude to our host family by helping them cook the dinner. Whether we helped or completely ruined the dinner preparation, I am not sure, but our family did seem very grateful and a tad surprised that we had insisted on taking part. Once the dinner had been rescued by Magdelena, the elderly aunt, we settled ourselves down on the floor along with all the family members to enjoy a brothy meal. However, this action was met with protest from the family, and insistence that we sit at a plastic table in the corner of the kitchen with a bench on one side of it. Despite our replies that we would rather eat with them on the floor, as it was presumably the norm, we ended up feeling that we had to sit at the table and eat, lest we offend our Peruvian relatives.
The Uros Reed Islands
This awkward situation not only made casual dinner conversation tricky to say the least, as we attempted to shout across the kitchen in questionable Spanish, it also made us feel as though we weren’t really being fully immersed in a typical lake Titicaca meal time.
As much as these facts were troubling, I put them to the back of my mind until the next morning and the boat-ride home, during which they resurfaced. The reason for this was that halfway through the journey, we were provided by our tour-guide with what can only be described as evaluation forms, complete with questions as to how the host families could have improved their hospitality and the general experience.
I was personally so taken aback by the sheer ridiculousness of this question, that I was almost too distracted to stop Rachel writing ‘could have had softer pillows’ down on her form. How on earth, I wondered to myself, am I supposed to evaluate and critique a family who have been kind enough to welcome us into their homes, provide us with food and beds and generally look after us? On another note, how exactly is providing Peruvian villagers with helpful hints about home furnishings supposed to produce an authentic, cultural experience? Instantly, I could see how the incongruous table had come to be a feature of Magdelena and co’s kitchen.
However, in a moment of extreme fair-mindedness, I did consider that pretty much all the families on the island make a living from the hosting of tourists night after night, and anything that we could do to attract more business for them and in turn maintain their income must not be all bad. But then, the more tourist influences filter into such situations, the more they become an inauthentic show, and not a true representation of another culture.
So herein lies the dilemma: how to be an inquisitive traveller, with a thirst for exploration, but equally act the part of tourist thoroughly enough for the visited country to benefit…