Lake Titicaca and the Uros Islands

Posted in Adventure, Peru

After leaving Arequipa, we hopped a bus to Puno. The ride was much smoother this time around, but we took a bus that was uhm…not quite as nice. And by not quite as nice, I mean has not been cleaned in about 15 years. And this was apparently a “local” bus and stopped in every no name town there was to stop in. (I am not joking when I say no name town…literally one stop was in the middle of the mountains with no signage…)

Anywhoo–first and really only thing on the agenda for Puno was a tour of Lake Titicaca–apparently the largest navigatable lake at the highest altitude in the Americas.

The first stop on our lake tour was one of the floating Uros Islands. As we learned today, when the Inca came to conquer the area, the Uru people fled to the floating islands off the coast of Puno. The islands are constructed of reeds that they use to walk on, eat, and construct their homes. Approximately 2000 live on the 80+ floating islands in Peru.