Puno - Lake Titicaca

As promised, here're the gory details of our voyages on Lake Titicaca.

By chance we've now sailed on the two largest lakes on the continent, Maracaibo in Venezuela and now Titicaca in Peru. The latter is dotted with islands, and a top tourist destination.

Lake Titicaca is home to the famous Uros tribe, who, fleeing persecution at the hands of first the Incas and then the Spanish conquistadores, decided they'd had enough of living on dry land. They constructed huge floating islands made from nothing but totora reeds, and sailed off into the middle of the lake.

The Uros still live on these floating islands today. Their houses, boats, and the "ground" itself is still made of nothing but reeds. Of course, this is a huge tourist attraction - the islands were moved closer to shore to be nearer the tour agencies! Still, it's a fascinating sight. We disembarked on two different islands, on which Uros women were selling their crafts. The "ground" is springy, and has to be more or less continuously replaced - as the lower layers rot new reeds are laid down on top. Some of the reed houses have solar power, but nevertheless the Uros' existence is pretty unpleasant, and as tourists we felt somewhat guilty, as they'd probably be living on the mainland if it wasn't for us wanting to visit them!

Living on a man-made island proved to be useful in one way though. A few weeks before we arrived two Uros families had an argument. The solution was obvious - they chopped their island in half and floated away from each other. Clever!

Second stop was Taquile, a real island in the middle of the lake. The people there are just as interesting as the Uros (apart from the floating bit, obviously!). Isolated, they have retained most of their traditional customs and ways of life. Their islands has no roads and no cars, just stone paths. The men wear their traditional dress, including wacky hats that they knit themselves and change according to their marital status. Of course, the whole thing is likewise somewhat touristy, but fun nevertheless. We had lunch on Taquile - fish, of course!