Manmade Reed Islands of Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia:
June 23, 2017
By Linda Jaivin
High in the Peruvian Andes on Lake Titicaca, we visit the Uros, an indigenous people who build boats, houses – even the floating islands they live on – out of reeds.
Two yellow pumas rear up on Lake Titicaca, mouths agape, eyes rolling. “Mercedes-Benz,” giggles our “taxi” driver, Eduardo. I wonder for a moment if I’ve chewed one too many coca leaves (a local remedy for altitude sickness). But while the thinness of the air at 3812 metres above sea level can do funny things to your head, there really is a double-decker extravaganza of a totora-reed boat, with twin pumas at the prow, sailing past.
By comparison, our single-oar water taxi is a jalopy: bundles of totora reeds tied in a sinuous shape that vaguely resembles a headless duck, topped with a brightly striped woven blanket to sit on. Eduardo is taking us on a jaunt around the world’s highest commercially navigable lake, a body of water nearly the size of Puerto Rico and the birthplace of Incan civilisation. Pumas may no longer prowl its shores but they are still totemic as symbols of courage, power and energy.
Eduardo’s people, the Uros, live here in the middle of the lake, in totora-reed houses on floating islands they build and rebuild themselves out of – what else? – totora reeds. They anchor the islands to the lake bed with rocks so as not to wake up in Bolivia (the lake is divided between Peru and its neighbour). The Uros, who claim descent from the first settlers of the Andean plateau, have lived like this for hundreds of years since working out it was one way to escape enslavement by the Spanish conquistadors, not to mention Incan and pre-Incan aggressors. Today, there are 94 islands, with up to 10 families per island.
More:
https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/explore/south-america/peru/exploring-lake-titicaca-in-peru.html
More photos with articles in google images:
https://tinyurl.com/sf5xter
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It certainly looked like another world to me!
Our guide did a "show and tell" of how the islands are constructed using reeds. We took a ride in the reed boat. Watched some of the women making crafts from the reeds. Brought a mobile home that is hanging in my study where I can look at it and take myself back to that day.
Here's a view of the islands with the afternoon sun shining on them
And a woman embroidering a hanging to sell to tourists (see the mobiles hanging in the upper left of this photo)
And a shot of the mobile this tourist purchased which is now hanging in my study.
With a close up to show the detail in the bottom reed boat with the male and female figure.
