The Floating Islands of the Uros

After crossing over into Peru we stopped in Puno. Puno is another small city on the banks of the HUGE Lago Titicaca. Puno is the base for one of the most popular travel destinations on the lake. The floating islands of the Uros tribes.

Lloyd, me and Holly booked a tour to go visit these communities. Almost everything they do are based on totora reeds. With these reeds they started building their floating islands a long time ago, probably to escape from the dominating Incas or other violent tribes. The islands, although nowadays very commercial, are a wonder to see. Families build them by using the reeds and then layer more reeds on top of this. As the reeds rot they replace it by more reeds (about 10 times a year). An island lasts about 16 years before the colony moves to a new island.

Holly and Lloyd

the first island

the second island

They also build boats out of the reeds and used to travel many miles on these. We did a short trip on one of these boats to another island. Pretty cool! Once the boats start to decompose they lift them onto the island and plant potatoes in them! You can also eat the reeds, it tastes a bit like cucumber, but with a bit of an aftertaste.

what´s up doc?

one of the grander double-hull boats

There are about 3000 Uros still alive today, but only a handful still live on the 47 islands. They live mostly off birds and fish (they have trout farms on the islands) and of course the money their crafts bring in from the hundreds of tourists!

a friendly local

the fish dance, saying thanks for coming

After that we went to Isla Taquila, another beautiful island. We spent some time exploring the area and then had a nice lunch (trout again!), before the LONG way back on the boat.

beautiful Isla Taquila

That night we took a night bus to Cusco (did not get a lot of sleep). We are now relaxing in Cusco after spending the morning being harassed by hundreds of people all insisting we should book tours with them and eat at their restaurants! We hid in travel offices and restaurants... Hey, wait a minute! Anyway, we looked everywhere for a place on the famous Inca Trail, but to no avail. New regulations allow only 500 people a day (including porters and guides). The earliest possible date available is 19th of April, way to late! We did book space on an alternative route, although not on the old Inca roads and past all the ruins, it is a great and slighty tougher route (5 days, 4 nights) and we still end at Machu Picchu. I will post the photos of the trek when we get back on Thursday. Neil