How to visit Lake Titicaca's floating islands, an ancient engineering marvel
By Dave Stamboulis
Travel Expert
MARCH 1, 2022
Set at elevations above 10,000 feet, South America's Lake Titicaca is a worthy travel destination in and of itself. Surrounded by both Peru and Bolivia, it's the highest navigable lake in the world, and it features gorgeous islands as well as snowcapped and glaciated peaks not far from its shores.
Perhaps even more intriguing is a visit to Titicaca's floating islands, found near Puno, Peru, where the Uros people have been using totora reeds for centuries to make their homes, their boats and even the islands themselves.
Totora reed island
Photo courtesy of Dave Stamboulis
An island made out of reeds
Hundreds of years ago, when Inca expansion took over much of their lands, the Uros needed somewhere safe to make home. They discovered that the wetland reeds, which they used for making rafts and later boats, could be used to live on and make inhabitable dwellings.
The totora reeds, which are of the same family as the bulrush sedge and are super strong, have also been used to make floatation devices by the Rapa Nui community on Chile's Easter Island, some 2,500 miles away in the middle of the Pacific.
Photo courtesy of Dave Stamboulis
More:
https://www.10best.com/interests/explore/how-to-visit-lake-titicaca-floating-uros-islands/
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