Uros Floating Islands- Lake Titicaca

We had a very early start to our overnight tour of the islands on Lake Titicaca. Thankfully, Kieran was doing really well and we all had a good night's sleep. We started with a breakfast of, guess what....overcooked scrambled eggs, dry rolls and coca tea in the salon of the hostal. There we met a few of our fellow travelers, a sweet young Peruvian couple and two American women who are working in Columbia as teachers. We all jumped into a van headed to the dock for our tour boat. There are many tour operators who offer this trip and each presents their trip in a brochure showing their tour boat. The boats at the dock looked like 50 year old versions of those boats, having had no maintenance or upkeep in those 50 years!

Our first stop was to the Uros floating islands. The people of these islands first moved there from the mainland to escape the Inca and Colla people who were much more warlike than the Uros. They built new islands out of Tortora reeds that grow in the lake. As the reeds rot in the water, they harvest more and pile them onto the island to reinforce their "land." They also build their homes of these reeds and their transportation....fanciful boats to get from one small island to another.

We arrived at the first island to several women sporting the biggest smiles ever! They shared some of the more traditional ways of life and we took a ride on one of the reed boats.

We didn't do much more than that, but it was a fascinating way of life and unbelievable that they made these islands over 600 years ago and still live there. Our next stop was about 3 hours away to Amantani, where we would spend the night with a family on the island.