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Published: December 22nd 2014
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Yesterday, Sunday 21
st December, we took a tour to visit a couple of islands on Lake Titicaca. It was a beautiful sunny day with not a drop of rain, despite being the rainy season now, and the lake was almost as blue as the Mediterranean. An American girl on our tour said that it looked so like the Med, she wanted to jump in, but of course, it is severely freezing cold, so didn´t! Very wise!
The Uros people of Lake Titicaca have been building and living on floating reed islands for centuries. Originally driven from terra firma by Quechua tribes, they lived for many years on boats made from reeds and then progressed to building islands and houses as well as boats from the reeds of the lakes. The roots of the reeds also provide sustenance, being edible. The islands rot naturally from the bottom, so are constantly being rebuilt from the top. It is most strange to walk on the islands, being soft and spongy, floating as they are on the water. There are eighty-five such islands on the lake and working on a rota system, tourists can visit one of them by catching
a boat from Puno. Each island gets visited two or three times a month. Once ashore, the little community of the island demonstrates their craftwork with the reeds. We visited a little floating island called Amanecer Titino and also went on one of the reed boats for a short twenty minute ride through the reeds, being punted along by the head man of the community.
After leaving Amanever Titino, our boat took us on to Isla Taquile, which is the largest island on the lake in Peru; the southern end of Titicaca is over the border in Bolivia, where lies the largest island, the Isla del Sol, where we shall be in a few days’ time. The small community on Taquile survive by rearing sheep, knitting and weaving; the men knit and the women weave. These people are not Uros, they are Quechua. From the dock we had an uphill hike, only 800 metres but with a rise of about 150 metres up to an altitude of 3,980 metres. When one is at that altitude, it is necessary to take it slow! It was quite tiring, so we were glad when we reached the little
plaza at the top, where there is a small church and the textiles store. We had lunch there, and some local children and adults showed us their traditional Quechua dances. Other children in the plaza, dressed traditionally, trained at a very young age, to say “photo” and put their grubby hands out to tourists, is a sadness. Needless to say we do not have any “cute” kids photos in our collection, but many tourists do. The only photos we have of children are of those performing their dances with their parents, mentioned before.
From the plaza we walked a kilometre and a half to the northern side of the island, where our boat awaited. The views were stunning, the blue lake, green islands, and in the distance, the snow-capped Andes.
Today we have a chance to explore Puno, get to the bank to get some Bolivianos, and go to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow, when we are moving down to the southern end of the lake, about two hours journey by bus, across the border into Bolivia, to the town of Copacabana, for one night, then
Eve we shall get
to the Island of the Sun. So, packing again and chewing the coca!
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