24th September: Puno and the islands of Lake Titicaca

The island tour started early, with a pick up from our hostel at around 6.30am.  After a tour of Puno's hostels, we arrived at the harbour, boarded our small boat, and set off for the floating islands of los Uros.  After about twenty minutes of chugging through a narrow channel with reeds on either side, we arrived at the islands.  They had been described to us as a Peruvian Disneyland, and that was not far off.  As we arrived, we were directed towards one of the 49 islands, so as to share out the tourist lucre among the different island-families.

Through the reed channel, pursued by more tourist boats

Greeted by the islanders as we arrived

After disembarking on our allocated island, we were seated on dried and knotted reeds.  Our guide explained to us that each island belongs to a single family, led by a "chief", and that they speak Aymara.  Our chief told us that they have a simple dispute resolution process: in the event of disagreement, they take a saw and cut off part of the island to create a new one.  Using a small model, he then showed us how the islands are made.  They cut blocks of earth under the reeds at the edge of the lake where the water is shallow, then tie the blocks together using eucalyptus stakes and nylon rope.  This base layer of around a metre is then covered with 20 or 30 layers of reeds, another metre or so.  Every 50 years or so, when the reeds' roots have decayed, an old block is replaced by slotting another block in its place.

Scale model of the island, with our boat in the background

There is a school on the island (though for high school they have to travel to Puno), and the local government provided solar panels so they have electric lights and TV (leading to a fall in procreation, the chief joked).  They live from fishing (rainbow trout are the largest in the lake), hunting ducks (at which point in the explanation the chief ran to get a gun), and collecting ducks' eggs.  The reeds even provide nutrition: the chief showed us how to peel back the root of the reed to expose the edible stalk, which was surprisingly tasty, if a little too fibrous.  Every week they take fish, ducks, and eggs to the market on the mainland to barter for meat, vegetables, and the eucalyptus wood they need for anchoring the islands and building houses.  Finally, he showed us how Lake Titicaca's shape resembles a puma (Titi) if you flip it upside down.  Peru has the Titi, Bolivia has the Caca, he joked.

The first island

After the demonstration, we were shown inside their homes by one of the women, and then it was time for the goods to be brought out and the selling to start.  The textiles were fairly impressive, but we wouldn't have had room in our bags, and the hard sell was a turn-off.  We did want to contribute, though, so we paid to take the "Mercedes Benz" (a two-tiered straw boat) over to a second island, while unexpectedly being serenaded by small kids.  The second island was even more commercial, full of shops and cafes.  There wasn't much of interest here except a tower for John to climb.

Our choir atop the straw boat

Alouette Gentille Alouette, Uros-style

John up the look-out tower

View of the second island from on high, with a pond full of trout

The crowds of tourists, well-rehearsed presentation, and slightly over-the-top hawking of goods was off-putting, but this lack of authenticity could not detract entirely from our astonishment that their people had lived like this, floating in the middle of a lake, for more than a thousand years (they originally took to the lake to escape the aggressive Colla and Inca tribes).

As we left, we saw villagers who seemed to be cutting new base-layer sections

We then headed over to another island, about 2hrs away, called Taquile.  This was a proper stone island, no reeds in sight.  We hiked up to the plaza at the top of the island (this time feeling rather smug at our fitness compared to the tourists who had just flown in).  The plaza was not overly interesting, and was full of tourists taking snaps of brightly-coloured kids (and in some cases, rudely, without asking permission or offering the one sol coin that the kids usually requested).  We then hiked a little further to a small restaurant where we were treated to a good soup and another grilled trout, which was delicious, much better than we'd had in Copacabana.  In the meantime we were serenaded with charango and pan-pipe by the "Pavarotti of the Island", including the traditional song "El Condor Pasa".  We then walked back down the other side of the island and rejoined our little boat.

Approaching Taquile island

Spot the tourists

Heading back down the hill

The 2 hour journey back to Puno was calm until the last half-hour, when it became a race to reach harbour before the on-coming storm reached us.  The storm won.  The boat rocked from side to side, the lightning flashed and thunder roared on top of each other, and rain poured down (and in, as John realised when his window-side arm was soaked).  The skipper managed to guide us into harbour through his smogged-up window, and we scurried off wrapped up in our waterproofs... only to find that our bus was not, in fact, waiting for us.  After finding shelter, we were eventually returned to our hostel.

The storm approaches