LAKE TITICACA

Day 86 04.10.15

We woke up well rested, had a great breakfast and were ready to go.

We met up with our guide and were surprised when we exited the hotel to find not a van but little tuk tuks waiting for us. We hopped on two by two and headed towards the port.

There we got onto the boat that would take us across Lake Titicaca.

Getting out of the port we passed several reeds that were growing in the water and were hiding away the rest of the lake and the housings on the floating islands.

The further we headed away from Puno and onto the lake the more we actually got to see settlements and the more it started to turn more touristy.

The first indication was the touristy reed boats that were surprisingly able to hold many people.

As we got closer to the island we were able to see the colourful skirts of the indigenous swaying from side to side already eagerly awaiting us to pull our boat to their island. We were about to find out why.

Getting onto the island felt like walking over a large waterbed. The reeds were moving about with the water and under our weight.

We sat down and were told a little about the island, how these floating piles of reeds are formed and constructed, their history and from what they live on this island.

The islands are formed by taking the roots of the reeds, which have floating properties pretty much just like cork, and splitting them off into little squares, no more than 5 metres x 5 metres (as any larger wont fit through the canals they use to manoeuvre the squares to their islands). These roots are then anchored on the lakebed in order for the islands to stay put in one place.

Due to their floating properties they move with the water level depending on rain, and the seasons. Next they add layer on layer on top of the roots of reeds in a criss cross motion to stabilise the construction.

Next they add their little houses on top, raised up by yet more reeds in order to avoid the humidity from the lake to come through the reeds and to prevent the inhabitants from receiving arthritis or other illnesses.

The reeds need to be renewed, or better said a new layer needs to be added to the reed bed every 3 months in order to avoid the bottom reeds from soaking up too much water and making them rot. Adding another layer of reeds is a viable option until about 30 years in when the amount of reeds on top of the roots is too much for the roots to carry and the island eventually sinks. That is when its inhabitants build a new island, with new roots and new reeds.

The houses on the island are very simple. They have a reed bed, and the house I was shown contained 4 people sleeping in a 3 x 2 metre house. They were catching up with the rest of society as they had solar panels with which they were able to power little televisions and radios.

Originally, it is thought, that the indigenous came from lower regions such as the jungle and just traced the rivers up eventually finding the lake.

They settled at the nearby mainland and were fishing and hunting just as they had before in the jungle. When the Incas came, they were forced to move away as the Incas were more an agricultural society and not as focused on fishing. The floating island people, or the people from Uros, built fishing boats out of reed to float around on the river for fishing. As these trips extended and extended in time, they even build little houses on their boats. So when the Incas came, they were already able to hide away on the lake, which is more or less the time when they started building their first islands on the lake. Hidden away by the long reeds they were visually protected from the Incas and were able to live a peaceful life. The only way the Incas could reach the islands was by swimming for 2 hours or by boat for 45 minutes and as the Uros people were pretty much the only ones who knew how to construct these boats, they were left alone. The only time they would come in from the lake was to trade with the Incas.

Back then they mainly lived off of the fish they found in the lake, such as several local species, of which some have already gone instinct from overfishing from the mainland. The trout has been newly introduced to the lake and provides a strong source of food supply for the people living on the floating islands. Everything else they have to trade with the mainland.

Nowadays they live of the vast amount of tourism that has evolved around the floating islands which means that busloads of tourists on boats are shipped to the different islands and they tell their story over and over. Eventually they end in presenting their handicrafts – quite elaborate tapestries and offer them up to the tourists to be bought.

I didn’t buy any tapestry but a cushion cover, and I feel more like I had been guilt tripped into buying it than actually needing such a cushion cover.

What impressed me most were the costumes they would wear here on the island. Apart from the neon colours of their skirts, they also wore different sized poms poms on their braids as can be seen here. They get the string and wool from the mainland and fabricate them into whatever they need on the floating islands.

Another constructional feature of the floating islands is the communication tower. Each island has such a tower and from that they can easily overlook the different islands, send messages through flags and obviously give the tourists a great way to enjoy the view.

From the communication tower, or their own constructed “telephones”, we offered a ride in their traditional reed boats to another island where we could have some tea and some quinoa bread.

We were bid farewell by the women who sang to us songs like “row row row your boat” as well as “vamos a la playa ohhooho”. Very unusual to hear from a place where the people live rather remote…

The trip was interesting to say the least, and we were moving at a pace of a snail on ecstasy. Ever so often our two paddlers would stop to rest and to regain strength.

We eventually got to the island with several other tourists keen on doing the same activity – drink tea and eat “bread”.

The bread was quite delicious and again reminded me strongly of buñols, just in a flat and fried version. We had some muña tea too, to help with the altitude.

From the floating islands we drove to the mainland where we would be having our homestay. This is the view from the pier.

The bay surrounding this part of the mainland (not Puno) was very pretty too and the sun was doing its best to underline the beauty.

We were assigned our “mother” and walked up the surprisingly steep hill to her little farm like cottage. Here are a couple of photos from the house and her room.

It was time for lunch and we huddled in her little kitchen to have a vegetable soup. As a main we had some “squeaky cheese” on top of rice with some potato and ochre.

After lunch we had time to rest and went on to accomplish our activity – pealing peas. This time they were dried up and looked more like carob tree seeds.

Martina, our mum, opened up a large blanket and inside were the full seeds. We made our way through pealing them all and ended up with a good yield of beans / peas. As we were sitting outside in the heat, Martina brought out traditional hats for us to wear. Very funny!

After our activity we headed back down to the dock where on a larger field we started playing some volleyball.

First we lost, then we won. It was a great way to bond with the locals, as sport is a universal language. After the game the sun was just setting and let us take some amazing pictures.

We headed back to her house to change into the traditional dress. Yes, with this ridiculous hat!

Unlike our other homestay, this homestay was more communal and so we went to a large house to prepare dinner communally. We peeled potatoes, all dressed up in traditional costumes and waited for dinner to be prepared.