Floating Islands

We booked the trip to the floating islands or Uros Islands in the Lake Titicaca through an agency (Inka Tours) and did not expect too much since it is one of the regions top tourist attractions. However, a part from being very touristy, it was quite interesting to learn about the Uros people and their urge once to isolate themselves from the aggressive Collas and Incas. First, as a means of protection, they lived on reed boats with a little hut on top. The boats lasted for 2 to 3 years and the space they had was very restricted so they invented a technique to build islands of reed. They took the roots of the reed which they cut in squares of 1 m by 1m, they bundled them up and anchored them to the bottom of the lake. On top of this floating platform they put cut reed which formed the top layer of the floating island. After a while the cut reed got rotten so a new layer had to be applied. The Uros people keep using this technique to build their unique space of living. There live between 30 to 100 Uros people on each of the 26 islands and the bigger islands contain several “buildings” including school, post office and of course an overabundance of souvenirs shops. Today, several hundred Uros people still live on the islands and eke out a living with fishing, hunting and tourism.

As I said, it was touristy but interesting and worth the visit.

Saludos,

Sabrina and Fredrik