Meet the Uros on their floating islands in Lake Titicaca
Bus came to a stop, it was around 8:00 am in the morning. I slept for 6 hours in the past 9 hour drive in the Bolivia Hop bus from Cusco, Peru. Had some breakfast — eggs, toast with butter and a very sweet mango juice in a empty catering hall. Few minutes past that, we got out of the bus to get into a boat in Lake Titicaca — the highest navigable lake in the world — to meet the Uru People. This lake is at an elevation of 12,507 ft (3812 m)
Before jumping into a bit of history, a bit about the current day Uru People — They live in artificial (man-made) Islands, around 44 of them few kms from Puno, a city southeast of Peru — and yes, man-made islands that’s built from Tatora reeds. These reeds are not just used to build the multi layered islands but also the boats that the people used to navigate — Caballitos de totora.
At the edge of one such boat -
Here’s a local, explaining to us how these islands were build, he made a miniature that shows how it looked under water. There are around 44 of them and though these people need more, there are government restrictions on how many of these islands can be built — probably for a good reason.
Tatora have dense roots that interleave and are placed in layers called — Khili. As you can see, the reeds that go into the water rots away quickly, so new layers of khili needs to be added on the top pretty frequently — about every 3 months. When we walked around the island, it wasn’t pretty stable — every step went down a couple of inches into the reeds.
The biggest island has around 8–10 families living on them, in their cute huts that had — a tv, a bed, etc. I was invited into one of their homes and here’s how it looks:
These homes are powered by Solar panels not grid and the Uros cooked outside their homes — I couldn’t get a picture of them actually cooking but here’s a setup.
But, I got a picture of one of them, fishing for food (trouts, catfish, ispi, kindfish etc), they’ve built blocks of water bodies, of various sizes, in the island to catch fish.
Talking about the Totora reeds — it doesn’t just stop with building homes, furniture, islands and boats — when the top layer of the reed is pulled off, there’s a white part of it — called Chullo — that is high in iodine content and is known to be a cure for thyroids. I had a whole stick, it was pleasant.. didn’t have much taste to it — closest to that i’ve had is a celery stick.
Coco leaves to the andeans, is like Chullo to the Uros. If I had either of them in Boston, I’d probably eat them as a cure for hangovers and altitude sickness.
This is how the edible part of Totora looks like, after a bite -
What makes the Uru people so special, is their ancestry — not only did they pre-date the Spanish Conquistadores, but recent genetic research suggest that their history goes back to 3700 years ago, probably the oldest in the alti-plano of central andean region. The human settlements at this altitude, so many years ago has been one of the greatest mysteries of our times and there’s currently many researches that swabs DNA samples from these islanders to connect some dots. These Urus, have been subject to many invasions and conquests by Aymaras and the
Quechuas (that’s mostly pre incans and incans). This explains why they don’t speak their original Uro language anymore, having involved in intermarriage with other tribes, they’ve almost lost their historical identities.
The Incan Influence — Chakana or the Incan Cross
and now, to my most favorite part of traveling — meeting people.
Happy to pose, with her kid — i think his name was Alejandro. I should write them down, next time.
I clicked this from the boat, while they were singing us a send-off song in probably aymara or Uru-Itu (with low likelihood)
local tourism — I assure you, she was happier when I bought something from her :)
a little girl, who goes to a school somewhere in the mainland.
and the highlight of them all — meet Juan, a kid who’s still learning how to swim, but who tried jumping into the water with no fear, off the boat till his dad picked him up.
In a pensive-mood -
His real happy self
I’d highly recommend these islands — engage in local tourism and help them grow while learning about one of the oldest altiplano andean civilizations.
Hit me up, if you have any questions or comments. All photographs were clicked by me, except the last one.
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