The Floating Islands Of Titicaca

Michaela wants me to tell you about face cream. And hand cream. Et cetera. At these altitudes they behave rather differently from normal – every time Michaela removes the lid from a tube, there’s a rocket launcher of a squirt of white liquid capable of hitting the far wall of a hotel bedroom without so much as a gentle squeeze on the tube, like the contents can’t wait to escape. No doubt there’s a scientific reason for this phenomenon but for now Michaela is busy finding ways to clean cream off everything from quilt covers to wallpaper.

Today’s cream coating for the bedroom furniture is in Puno, our last stop in Peru before we cross the border into Bolivia, a pleasant town where the Peruvian obsession with panpipes goes to new incessant levels, though to be fair we’re still able to enjoy the music and thankfully we’re not yet panpiped out. Not quite.

We have ventured now into the vast region known as the Antiplano, a huge high level plateau – in fact, this is the only place in the world outside of Tibet where such an extensive high level plateau exists. The bulk of the Altiplano lies in Bolivia but such is its size that it also extends into Peru, Chile and Argentina, covering in total some 40,000 square miles. This is a world of unique flora and fauna – and a world where we breathe hypoxic air (Google it – we had to!), dangerous if not treated with respect. Puno is the first of several Altiplano towns and cities which we’ll be visiting over the next two weeks; it’ll be a some time before we drop below 3,500 metres altitude.

This pleasing town sits on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake at 3,812 metres above sea level. It’s a sizeable lake too, measuring 190 x 80km with a surface area of 8,372 square kilometres, and a maximum depth of 280 metres. The Peru-Bolivia border runs roughly down its centre. 

A short boat ride offshore from Puno are the famed floating islands which are home to the Uros people who have inhabited these strange places for many generations, isolated from the mainland community and in extremely spartan conditions. Let us say next though that visiting these places now is a little odd: fascinating to observe and learn how in a historical sense they have survived, but the fact that tourists now traipse through their world every day has surely, for them, changed everything. Remarkable as it all is, the isolation is in reality a thing of the past.

So let’s forget the now and imagine the then. The floating islands are constructed entirely from the reed grasses which grow in abundance in this part of Lake Titicaca. In their natural growth process, the reed forests form a thick 1-metre deep root bed comprising root and mud, which breaks away from the lake floor as water levels rise in the rainy season. Thus, the reed bed rises to the surface and becomes effectively a natural floating island.

Presumably, having spotted this natural process, the Uros people concluded that all that was now needed was some form of secure matting to top the island and make it habitable. For this, they dry out the tops of the self same plants until they are straw-like, then matting them down on to the surface to a depth of one metre. So now there’s a metre of dry flat matting and, beneath, another metre of wet root bed. Of course, this combination is temporary as the wet root beds begin to rot the matting, so a new 10-centimetre layer of dry matting is needed, across the top of the island, every single week.

The island is then anchored to poles (you guessed it, the poles are the thicker reed stems, almost as thick as bamboo) via ropes. Thus, the island doesn’t sail, but it definitely floats – walking across it is akin to walking on a bouncy castle, and when the wake of a passing boat passes through, the whole island moves in waves.

For centuries the Uru led a completely isolated lifestyle, eating just fish and birds (and, would you believe, the base of those very useful reeds), with little or no contact with the outside world. Now, tourism brings money, brings solar power, brings food from mainland shops. It also brings knowledge, so of course now the population of the floating islands is dwindling fast as the younger generation head away from the traditional life and into an easier world.

Last word on the Uru, or Uros people, has to go to their very unusually shaped boats, pictured below and vaguely resembling Venetian gondolas. These odd looking craft are made from  – well, they’re made from the reed grasses, of course they are, although sometimes nowadays with a synthetic coating. The island President (yes, each floating island has one) tells us the main reason the boats have such high sides.

He points to the tiny, flimsy huts that are their homes.

“Here on our island”, he says, “there is no privacy. So when two people want love, they go on to the water in one of our boats”.  

It takes a moment for it to sink in that he really is saying that the boats have high sides so that couples can have sex in them away from prying eyes. He even calls the boats their “barcos romanticos”. Michaela suggests another name but I can’t put it in print!

Final word on that to The President…”we always say”, he chuckles, “that two go out in the boat but three come back”. 

Leaving the floating islands and their unusual history behind, we journey to a more conventional island, Taquile, where the island dwellers enjoy a reputation for making high quality woven hats and knitted belts and bags. In truth, our joy of Taquile is the lovely ancient shepherd’s path which rises from the lakeside to the village at the top, reminiscent of our many hikes to the chora of a Greek island. Apart from the gorgeous island scenery, our confident 40-minute climb is a nice confirmation that we are acclimatising well to this very different environment.

Climbing into bed tonight, we feel that wonderful mix of travellers’ emotions that comes with moving on: a genuine sadness that tomorrow we will be crossing the border and leaving Peru behind, but a buzzing excitement that a new country, Bolivia, awaits.

Adios Peru. Muchas gracias.