Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake

It was a beautiful sunny day when we left Cusco for Puno. Our bus stopped at several points of interest including the remains of the largest known Inca temple at Raqchi, and the museum at La Raya where we saw stone statues of The Decapitator with the head of the priviledged sacrificee in his left hand. With stops for lunch, an old colonial (Spanish) church, photograph opportunities and just enough time to purchase two alpaca skin rugs, it took ten hours to reach Puno.

As we gradually left the lush and fertile sacred valley and climbed into the Andean highlands (4300m), which supports only the Andean grass on which the llamas, alpacas, sheep and cows graze, we were surprised to see flamingos from Africa in the river as it meandered into Lake Titicaca. Many indigenous people have a hard existence in the highlands living in adobe brick houses with straw rooves. The cold river is their only water supply. Although they own the land and some livestock it would be difficult for them to move closer to the cities should they wish to do so. Without any grazing for their livestock, they would have nothing.

After a thunderous overnight hail storm in Puna, we took a boat across Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world (3820m) to the floating reed island of Uros. Here we learned how the people, caught between two warring tribes, moved onto the lake for a peaceful existence. They construct their islands using the root ball cut out of the bottom in one-metre squares. Several of these tied together form a floating platform on which dried reeds (Tortona) are laid like mats. These platforms are then anchored in place with long sticks.

The modern houses have a 2 x 4 wooden frame covered with reeds. The rooves are thatched with reeds which also provide fuel for cooking and sustenance. The mayor of the ten-family island had a solar panel that powered his incandescent light and the radio used for emergency communication (needed when the island accidently is incinerated while cooking their meal of small bony fish and tasteless reeds.)

This morning we met Meriel Larkin who heads up the Yavari project: refurbishing the first steam-powered ship to patrol the boundary between Peru and Bolivia. The ship, first commissioned in 1870, was constructed from almost 3,000 parts most of which were made in Birmingham, England and individually shipped to Tacna then hauled by mule over the Andes to Puno, which took six years. The original steam engine, fuelled by dried llama dung, was replaced in 1914 by a 4 cylinder Volvo diesel engine that still works today. The boat was subsequently converted to an oil tanker and had been abandoned when Meriel found it She has been diligently raising the money and enthusiasm to refurbish it to its original condition ever since.

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