Travel Forum - Traveler Mania

Islands on Lake Titicaca - South America 
   
  Lake Titicaca sits on the border of Bolivia and Peru and is said to be   the most highly located commercially navigable lakes in the world. It is   also the largest lake present in South America. The lake gets its water   supply from rainfall and the melted waters of the glaciers on the   Sierras. The lake is very popular for its floating islands. There are a   total of 41 islands which are populated by the local tribes and clans.   The islands are man made and created by the local residents. These   floating islands are created out of canes that are strategically placed   to grow in the shallow waters of the lake. An average of five families   live on these tiny floating islands with upto ten members in each   family. The inmates of these islands has to create a home following wars   that dragged on for centuries. These people had to live in their boats   for a long time and eventually constructed these islands to make life   more comfortable. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

 Lake Titicaca is a most blessed place when it comes to Inca religion and mythology, as it was here that the first Inca king, Manco Capac, was born by the sun god, Inti. Manco would create the Kingdom of Cusco, thus commencement the Inca Empire. If you make it to the Bolivian town of Copacabana, where pilgrims from all over the continent come to get the Virgin's blessing, then you can take a boat to the Isla del Sol. There is a holy rock here which marks the point from which Manco Capac emerged. As far as the origin of the name Titicaca goes, it remains mostly a mystery

As we sometimes focus on the daily business of finding loads and back loads to keep our businesses running, it's easy to start to lose sight of the economic and political backdrop to our business.

You can probably guess what's coming next - yes, another rant about fuel duty in the UK.

However, this one really is necessary. Here are some facts you may find amazing.

We're up when they're down

At the time of writing (summer 2011) the market price of crude oil has fallen by roughly 15-18% over the past 4 months. The result at the pumps? Yes, you guessed it, the price of fuel has, on average, gone UP by about 2% over the same period. The excuse being offered this time is that Sterling has weakened against the US Dollar (the exchange rate is around 1.58) and market prices are set in Dollars, however, not that long ago Sterling rocketed against the US Dollar and was sitting in the 1.80s.

Hands up if your memory is different, but it's hard to recollect mass headlines in the papers at the time, proclaiming that fuel prices were sinking rapidly at the pumps due to the weak dollar.

Strange eh? Of course, it's not just hauliers and our loads / back loads that are suffering. Most of us are also 'ordinary' drivers as well and we too see the pain when filling up with petrol. The trouble is, as the cost of our outbound loads and back loads increase, it eats into our ever-thinner profit margins and may, where we have the flexibility to do so, also result in price hikes to our customers and the economy in general.

Once again, many people in the haulage industry and elsewhere are starting to build up a head of steam on this issue - and it's hard not to have a degree of sympathy. Nobody seriously doubts the current economic problems and the government's need to squeeze every penny it can out of fuel revenues, but the ongoing apparent indifference to fuel being one of modern society's necessities of life, risks creating serious ill feeling.

It's true that our business faces many pressures and economic stresses at the moment - as do many others. Yet the difference between fuel and other rising price issues is, in the minds of many hauliers, just 'different' because it is so hard to see the underlying economic justification as being due to anything other than both oil companies and governments seeking to make huge and exploitative profits.

So, for the time being, much of the talking in the haulage industry continues to be around 'business as usual issues' - road conditions and the availability of back loads etc. But surely, things in the area of fuel costs and equitable solutions must change if that's to remain the case?