This Offbeat Life
New Economy Cooking
Backpacking by Bus

The Ultimate Mobile Home:
The Floating Islands of Peru

by Rachel Friedman

For most of us, a house represents stability. Your home is the place you return to, a solid force in an otherwise liquid existence. For the Uros people of the Islas Flotantes (Floating Islands), however, home is not a place which offers the promise of permanent shelter. This colony of islands which spring from the surface of Lake Titicaca (the world’s highest navigable lake on the border of Peru and Bolivia) are man-made structures initially built by the indigenous people of Peru forced to flee the mainland or become enslaved by the Incas. They fled to the open water, constructing a series of islands out of the totora reeds, which grow plentifully in the shallow areas of the lake. The reeds become soggy at the bottom first, forcing the residents to perpetually insert replacement reeds from the top. Imagine your bed rotting underneath you while you sleep. The first floating island was simply a reed boat, much like a canoe. A community slowly erupted from the waters, many people working together to build larger and sturdier islands. There are currently about three hundred Uros/Aymara citizens who call the floating islands home.

Although experiencing the magnificence of the floating islands alone is unforgettable, the less touristy, more personal part of my two day tour involved a family stay on Amantani, one of two regularly anchored islands amidst the more flexible residences. My friend Carly and I were the overnight guests of the gracious Benita, a young wife and mother. After following the winding, rocky path up to her house, we are brought to our room – small and sparse, but painted a cozy pink with two beds and an unlit candle on the wooden desktop. After a short rest, we wander into the kitchen, where Benita is preparing the afternoon meal. Janet, her one year old daughter, amuses herself with a shoe lace on the floor, investigating us slyly as we approach. We display a much less subtle curiosity with regards to our new surroundings. The kitchen is tiny and unventilated, with ceilings so low our host is half hunched over – and she’s only five feet tall! She stands stirring five or six pots emitting various aromas, adeptly preparing an intricate soup. We watch her cook, entranced. After a moment, however, our eyes water so heavily from the smoke we must step back outside into the freezing air, wondering how she possibly spends so much of her day in that stifling room.

Dinner is friendly and awkward. An older man who we think is Benita’s husband comes to the table, as does a teenage boy and another younger boy, maybe six years old. We ask questions in our half correct, carefully pronounced Spanish, but soon realize we aren’t being understood. While the seeming patriarchal head of the household simply answers “si” to all the questions we ask, I get flustered and mix up my vocabulary, realizing that for all I know I just inquired if he has any pink bunny rabbits available at a discount price. The Amantani speak mainly Aymara, an indigenous language. Eventually, we sit in silence, sipping our soup, huddled close together for warmth.

After dinner, Benita appears in our room with two traditional island outfits. She ties three layers of skirts around our bloated waists. I whisper to Carly that my distended belly is visible to the naked eye, full and engorged with the heavy meal of rice and eggs we have just consumed. She tells me to be quiet, but I catch her sucking in her waist as Benita pulls a fat, corset – like belt tightly around her. Next, an intricately patterned blouse, topped with a heavy black shawl meant to cover our heads and keep out the cold. She pauses briefly, admiring her work, and then motions for us to follow. She leads us to a town dance, set in the middle of a large open room, which we are told is the town meeting hall. For the next three hours we are whirled and twirled around by various men and women. Between the altitude and my tight dress, I feel ready to pass out any moment. But I can’t help laughing in delight at the spectacle of our group, all dressed up and dancing, floating along on the one grounded island amongst so many others which continuously drift across the cold blue lake.

Although visits to the floating islands of Peru have become extremely popular over the last ten years or so, it is still well worth the visit. If you can, book a two day tour and stay overnight of Isla Taquille or Amantani. You will undoubtedly be the guests of a gracious island family, as we were, and get to see a bit more of the local island life since the overnight visit is not yet an overly commercialized excursion.

If you don’t get to stay overnight, however, a day trip to a few floating islands will show you a world you never knew existed. Young boys stand tall on reed boats they push through the shallow green waters. A small girl runs to the edge of her family’s island to wave as you pass by. A local resident offers you a totora reed as a snack, leading you to believe you might be eating his house from the inside out. All the while, families float around you, greeting one another and exchanging goods, eyeing tourists with a wary glance. While some have embraced the added income tourism brings to the islands, others prefer to attempt to remain isolated, the way they have for hundreds of years. But, ready or not, people and technology are invading the islands. There is even talk of internet connections making their way out to some of the islands in the next few years. So get there – and fast. These Peruvians' fascinating way of life is quietly floating away….