Day 10: Titicaca I (Uros' islands)

We arrived in the lakeside city of Puno at 5ish am. It was still dark, so we stayed a bit longer at the station before taking a taxi to our hotel. The usual (and annoying) huddle of taxi drivers and travel agents rushed towards us and other foreign prey.

We could see the lake from the window of our hostel room, which was spacious with two twin beds and the large picture window with the nice view. The city, despite being the main gateway to the lake, looked quite dull and sad. All the buildings and houses were brown, it was like a muddy town in the distance. Due to the high elevation, the rolling hills surrounding the town were also barren and almost devoid of vegetation, except short brownish shrubs and dry grass. The weather was a bit chilly, but not a big deal.



Puno in the background

After putting our feet up for a while, we went down to the dock to say hello to the shiny well-known highest lake in the world (3812 m) and the largest in South America (170 km long and 60 km wide) We got on a little motor boat that took us to the Uros' islands, artificial floating islets made of reed and inhabited by a few hundred Aymara-speaking locals.

Locals use totora reed (a plant that grows in the lake itself) to make the islets, but also their dwellings and boats. They add new layers of reed on top of the old ones as they rot away, around every fifteen days, and the islands are anchored so that they don't move. The rotten smell is pungent (and you often put a foot in a hole and get soaked as well). The local women and girls dress in brightly-colored skirts and shirts, and often wear big fluffy tassels at the end of their long dark braids, so you easily spot them from a distance as the boat approaches, contrasted in a rainbow of color against the dull yellow reeds upon which they stand. Many of the larger reed boats are quite ornate with the reeds curved up majestically into sort of dragons’ heads at the front of the boats. Although the islets seem to be very touristy and controlled, the Uros have been living there for centuries. They built these islands to run away from the Incas back in the day, and they have kept the tradition since then. Simply fascinating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met a Peruvian guy from Lima during our visit and, once back in Puno, we went to a local restaurant to have lunch. We spent a nice time chatting and walking around with him in the afternoon as he told us about life in Peru, including dating and marriage customs. We then wanted to take it easy as we were exhausted from the accumulated tiredness we were dragging on. We bought some fruit from these ever-present colourful markets and went back to our hotel. Not long after, we went out like a lights.