Puno and the Uros Islands

We stayed at the Libertador hotel in Puno which was built in the shape of a liner with all rooms having a view of Lake Titicaca. The views were stunning and we watched both sunset and sunrise from the room. This review looks at the Peru side of Lake Titicaca which is quite different from the Bolivian part of the Lake. The famous floating Uros, reed islands are particularly found in Peru and in the bay near Puno. These are a group of 42 or so artificial islands made of floating reeds (totora, a reed that grows only in the shallows of the lake). Only the Uros islanders are allowed to harvest these reeds as they are protected for their sole use. The original reason these islands were constructed was for defence as they could be moved if required in times of conflict.

Once we arrived at the islands we went to visit one called Isla Tupiri. We were greeted with huge smiles and welcomed onto the island home. The main leader showed us how they made their islands by creating a mini island with a commentary from our guide. They begin by collected great chunks of reed roots that float and they tie these together with rope. They then layer loads of reeds at reeds at right angles to each other until they have a thick bed. They add to this regularly. They build up platforms of reeds higher than the main island bound together with rope and on these platforms they construct their reed houses. Outside each house a solar panel donated by the government and so inside each house there was a small black and white TV but otherwise every thing else was traditional.

On the larger islands there are schools, post offices and clinics for the island people. The children are collected by boat and taken to the school daily. On the smaller family islands they cook on a stone slab outside the houses and each family does their own cooking. They eat a lot of lake fish, reeds (the bit near the bottom is white and full of nutrition), guinea pig and a little other food that they may purchase from the boat shop or the mainland. They keep the guinea pigs on a mini island attached to their main island and they have a reed shelter too. They also grow some herbs in a small garden on the island which they regard as their medicine cabinet. In the middle of the island is a patch of water and they can catch fish from this area as well as from the main lake.

The area around Lake Titicaca is predominantly Aymara speaking, with the exception of the Amantaní and Taquile islands, where Quechua is spoken. However, the area to the west of the lake is Quechua, and the lake is the meeting point of these two cultures. The Uros culture also comes from this area, although it has largely died out, and the Uros Islands are now Aymara speaking. We passed a look out tower on or way to the islands with a huge sign " KAMISARAKI" which is Aymara for hello. We were told to say this as we arrived on Isla Tupiri which we duly did - the only word we could say in Aymara -and of course lots of smiling from both the island residents and us - a smile goes a log way when you don't have words to communicate with.

It is a fascinating visit and even though the islanders do invite for tourists to visit them and buy their craft work it is obvious that they live in a very traditional way ( even with the solar panels for TV) despite these visits and all the other modern technological changes that can be found in the rest of Peru.