Peru
Lake Titicaca is located in the Andes Mountains at an elevation of more than 12,500 feet. It’s the highest navigable lake in the world. Not far from its shores, in neighboring Bolivia, are the ruins of Tiahuanaco, one of the earliest civilizations in the Andes. Its ruins date back to 1500 BC and include a collection of stone faces lining the walls of a temple. What’s most striking about the faces is that they appear to represent ethnic groups from around the world—Africans, Asians, and Europeans—from a time when, presumably, the people of Tiahuanaco had no contact with these distant peoples. Around the year 1,000 AD, a brutal drought hit the high Andes, leading Tiahuanaco’s residents to abandon their city. What happened to them? One theory is that the modern-day descendants of Tiahuanaco live on today—as the Uros people. The Uros reside on self-constructed “floating islands” in the middle of Lake Titicaca.
Gina’s Story
As our small boat puttered across the lake toward the floating islands, we caught our first glimpses of the Uros. We watched dozens of men wading chest deep in the reed fields. I reached down and touched the water. It was frigid.
“That’s cold!” I said.
“Not to them,” our guide replied. “The Uros claim to have ‘black blood,’ which makes them immune from the lake’s cold waters.”
“What are they doing?” Scott asked.
“Most of them are harvesting reeds,” said our guide. “Thousands of those reeds are woven together to create a foundation for each floating island. The more reeds, the more weight an island can support. The islands have preserved the Uros culture by limiting their contact with the rest of the world—including invading Incas and Spaniards.”
Our guide had arranged a visit to one of the sixty floating islands. Stepping out onto the island was like walking on a sponge. The reeds crunched and gave way beneath each footfall, then sprang back as weight was released.
The Uros family, including a four-year-old boy, demonstrated how they harvest reeds and build their islands. Looking around, I realized that the islands have no railings. A child could easily fall into the water and drown.
“How do the children know to stay away from the water?” I asked.
Our guide translated our question and their answer. “Within these waters live giant frogs. They lurk around the edges of the islands, waiting for a child to get close to the edge. Then they shoot their long, sticky tongues out of the water to grab the child. This is the first story every child hears. Because no child wants to get eaten by a frog, boys and girls stay away from the edge. The tale of the child-eating frogs protects them from drowning.”
“Can you please ask them what’s the strangest thing they have ever seen living on the lake?” Scott asked.
Our guide conversed with the Uros family for a few minutes and then resumed his translation. “Six families live on this island now, but it used to house seven. Because the reeds at the bottom of the islands are constantly rotting, new reeds must be added to the surface, or floor, every few months. Each family is expected to contribute to the work needed to maintain their shared island. Laziness is not tolerated. Everyone has to pull his or her own weight. But the seventh family refused to harvest reeds. In the middle of the night, while they slept, the other families took saws and began cutting away the portion of the island on which the lazy family lived. Eventually, it broke off and floated away. The family then had to maintain their small island entirely on their own—before another group eventually allowed them to join. They learned their lesson. Now they work to maintain their new island.”
The visit concluded with the Uros family taking us on a tour of the village in their ceremonial reed boat. It was a catamaran, with two parallel hulls that supported a two-story center console. The front hulls curved upwards, with each bow forming the head of a puma. Rowers propelled us silently across the lake.
As we paddled along, I gazed upward at the cloudless sky. It looked different from other skies. It was a darker, deeper blue. The sky’s color was so similar to the lake’s that one appeared to be a mirror image of the other. On the horizon, the blue of the two merged seamlessly together. Was the sky reflecting the water, or was the water reflecting the sky?