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Travel Story

The islands and rafts of Lake Titicaca

On satellite photographs Lake Titicaca shines like a bright translucent sapphire set into the spine of the Andes. Its clear blue water splashes across 9,000 square kilometres of the Altiplano, that vast barren upland between snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Real. The lake is shared about equally between Bolivia and Peru but the Bolivians like to boast that they got the "Titti" while Peru got stuck with the "caca."

Having spent most of a week exploring the shoreline and islands on the Bolivian side of the border we were intrigued to see the difference. But before leaving Bolivia we took a boat to Isla de la Luna, and spent most of a day wandering around this tiny companion of Isla del Sol.

A group of Aymara women, the native Indians of the Altiplano, was waiting for us on the dock. Their traditional costumes of brightly coloured shawls and full, petticoat-stuffed skirts, were toped off by bowler hats perched on thick, waist-length black braids. Determined to sell us their handicrafts, they followed us up to a terrace where an Inca ruin known as Acllahuasi – "House of the Chosen Women" – has been partially restored. This is where the cloistered "Virgins of the Sun" brewed beer and wove fabrics for Inca royalty. They also entertained and served at ceremonies and were a source of wives and concubines for the Inca aristocracy. I couldn’t help thinking that the Aymara women following us with their intricately woven handicrafts may well be direct descendants of the "chosen women."

Accompanied by our entourage of persistent ladies we continued up to the summit. A fellow tending an outdoor clay and brick oven sold us some hot bread and we settled down to lunch surrounded by spectacular vistas east across the lake to Isla del Sol and west to the snow-capped peaks of Illampu and Ancohuma, each over 6,000 metres high. A small purchase from each of our local hiking companions left everyone smiling as we waved goodbye and headed down the opposite side of the island to our waiting boat.

On the long, slow trip back to Copacabana I couldn’t help thinking how different this place would have been if the Incas had seriously resisted the small band of Spanish conquistadors who spearheaded the brutal destruction of their civilization. The Inca leader Atahualpa, captured and held for ransom by the Spanish in 1532, was killed after the ransom, a room full of gold and two of silver, was paid. According to tradition, a life-sized silver woman and golden man once stood in alcoves on either side of the door to the "House of the Chosen Women" on Isla de la Luna. Like so much in Latin America they probably ended up in the Spanish melting pot.

At Copacabana we boarded a local minibus for the three hour drive to Puno. Despite a long lineup at the "Ministerio de Gobierno" in Kasani, our exit from Bolivia and entry into Peru was hassle-free. At first the only discernable difference between "Titti" and "caca" was the road – dusty gravel in Bolivia, pavement in Peru. Then there were the signs – huge works of graffiti in homage to Fujimori, still scrawled on buildings and fences long after the man himself had fled Peru. Farther north, the deep-water shoreline of the Copacabana Peninsula gave way to low reed-covered marshes, and by the time we reached Puno the shoreline was separated from open water by a vast expanse of impenetrable totora reeds reminiscent of a scene from The African Queen.

On the treeless Altiplano, the totora reed is to the native people what cedar was to the coastal natives of British Columbia – the basic raw material for boats, shelter, and fuel. The slender green reeds are harvested from shallow water, stacked and dried in the sun, until they turn a golden brown like stooks in a prairie wheat field. Still widely used for roof thatching the totora is best known for its boats. The classic, high-prowed reed boats, or balsas, of Lake Titicaca are made by lashing together bundles of dried reeds. The result is a stable but sluggish craft with the feel of a log raft and a life of only a few years before the reeds rot away. Once the mainstay of the Titicaca fishing fleet the classic balsa, now largely replaced by wood and fibreglass, has been relegated to a curiosity for tourists.

For the Uros who live on man-made floating islands off the shore of Puno the totora reed is more than just a building material. To these fiercely independent, self governing, landless people the reed is the very foundation on which their homes and lives are built. New reeds are constantly added to the top of the Islands as those at the bottom rot away in a timeless cycle that has sustained these great floating rafts and the people who live on them for centuries.

From Puno our motor launch threaded slowly through narrow channels bounded by six-foot high totora, past native boats piled high with freshly cut reeds destined for one of the islands. As we pulled alongside the first island I was amazed to see small children, including toddlers, playing unsupervised on the very edge of the floating straw mats. It seems they look after one another and learn a healthy respect for the water at an early age.

Walking around the spongy straw-brown surface, past stacks of drying reeds and tiny reed huts where women clean fish and prepare the succulent heart of the totora reed for eating, is like a stroll back through time. We see very few men. They are off fishing or working at jobs in Puno. The first island is clearly set up for tourists but unlike our experience on Isla de la Luna the Uros women display their handicrafts without being pushy. Their hand-loomed alpaca tapestries and reed figurines are top quality and the proceeds go to support an elementary school on one of the islands. People living on the outer islands simply wave, smile, ask us where we are from, and go about their business without trying to sell anything.

No one knows the exact origin of the Uros, an independent nomadic people. Some say they were expelled by the Incas for being lazy. The Uros themselves claim they arrived here fleeing the Spanish, intermarried with the Aymara Indians and have been there since 1532. They stay because it is the life they know, surviving by subsistence fishing and the sale of handicrafts. Others say the Aymara of Uros returned from poverty in the cities to make a living from tourists who are fascinated by their lifestyle.

Whatever their origin, there are today more than 1,000 people living in reed huts on these 60-odd rafts tethered in the shallow water of western Titicaca. Like the origin of the Inca culture and the Tiahuanaco culture that preceded it, the origin of the Uros people is just another of Lake Titicaca’s many mysteries.