Lake Titicaca: The Rock of the Puma

We headed out for an excursion onto Lake Titicaca, one of the world´s highest navigable lakes. It sits at 3810m and at 8310 square km it is the second largest lake in South America. The lake is home to numerous islands and cultures that have been relatively untouched by modern times. For this reason, we booked a trip to the islands that would take 2 days and one night.

Our first stop was the Isla Uros (aka The Floating Islands). These islands are very unique, and are the home to the Uros people. The people create their own islands using the abundant tortora reed. They continually have to replenish the top layer of the reeds as they rot out from the bottom. The islands are anchored to the bottom of the lake so they do not float away. There are 36 islands, some are quite small and are home to 4 families, while others are large and house schools, churches and community buildings.

The Uros people use the tortora reed for almost everything. They make their houses out of them, as well as very simplistic furniture. The reeds are even used as a food source. The most striking example of their ingenuity though, is the tortora reed boats. They create extremely tight bundle of the reeds that they then fasten together to create boats of varying size. They are now utilizing plastic, and bottles to add to the floatation of their boats though.

After a short visit there, we continued on our boat to the island of Amantani where we would spend the night. The trip was excruciatingly slow. The boat puttered along and what should have been maybe an hour took 4 hours. On the island, we were housed with a local family who put us up in a room in their house and fed us.

The island has some spectacular examples of pre-Incan terracing, and also has some ancient ruins. We trekked to the two highest points on the island, which house stone temples. The stonework is quite amazing, and is almost completely mortarless.


Today, after breakfast at our host families home, we were off to another island, Taquile. Taquile is smaller than Amantani, but is more frequently visited by tourists...very obvious. The interesting thing here was that they maintain some very unique traditions. The men knit their own hats (toques), that vary in colour and design. The colour, design, and how they are worn tell about their marital status. Women also wear bright clothing and darker shawls with pompoms that also indicate their status as well as their general state of being for the day. It is interesting to note that Taquile and Amantani are only a few kms from each other but their dress is very different. The women of Amantani wear bright clothig, but with embroidered white blouses and embroidered black shawls. The men of Amantani wear simple trousers and a vest and fedora. The craftmanship of the toques and sashes of Taquile are amazing in their detail and quality and it is also fascinating to take in these customs, so close to each other and yet so different.

After a very long boat ride, we are back in Puno. We will be staying for another day here before we head back to Cuzco. Tomorrow, we are hoping to be audience to some fasinating desplays of costume and dance during a local festival. Puno is said to be the folklore capitol of Peru and we took in the tail end of festivities on Oct.31... and if tomorrow is the big day, lets just say we are looking forward to bangles and gold aplenty.