Cruising on Lake Titicaca

Travelled By

Craig and Linda Martin

Craig and Linda Martin are world-travelling Kiwis, blogging and podcasting at the award-winning Indie Travel Podcasts. ...Find out more!

Peru is an incredible country, full of ruins that attest to its full and complex history. But one of my favourite experiences was visiting a living culture on Lake Titicaca.

There were five of us travelling together, and we'd learned that we didn't need to book accommodation in advance, we could just show up in a town and touts would fall over themselves to convince us to stay in their hostel.

Our travellers Craig and Linda at the start of their Lake Titicaca experience

When we arrived in Puno, three or four people approached us with folders of brochures displaying the hotels and guesthouses they represented. The first guy was lucky, he had our attention. "I have a wonderful place for you, only 20 soles." "20?!" I choked. "What are you talking about?" Actually, it wasn't a bad price, but there were cheaper options out there, and you never agree to the first price! Eventually we agreed on two rooms in a hotel for 12 soles per person - much more reasonable.

The tout walked us to the hotel (where the advertised prices were about 20 per person), made sure we were settled in, then sat us all down on the bed for some serious sales talk. We would, of course, be wanting to go for a cruise on Lake Titicaca, no? Well, yes, that was why we were in Puno, which doesn't have much else to recommend it. Well, he said, he had the perfect tour for us, he could give us a discount since there were five of us, a student price since we'd be joining a group of students. His tour included so much more than the other tours, and was cheaper than going independently.

We let him convince us, since his price was in fact cheaper than any we'd seen in our research, and although we saw no students at all during the trip, I think we made the right decision.

Islands made entirely from reed

The next day, the trip started with a visit to the floating islands, not far offshore from Puno. The islands are man-made, and are unlike anything I'd seen before. To construct them, the men cut swathes of turf from the lake bed, which forms the floating base of the island, since it's mostly decomposing reeds. Squares of this floating turf are fastened together, then the whole lot is covered with dry reeds taken from the lake. The houses are also formed from reeds.

All this was explained in great detail by our tour guide, with the aid of two or three islanders, who have the routine down pat. There are several dozen islands in the group, and every one we passed had a semi-circle of tourists listening to the same spiel. After the explanation, we were shown the inside of a traditional house, and sold traditional products. We had the choice to have a ride in a reed boat, and those of us who went were farewelled with such traditional songs as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".

Tourism is just a way of life on one of the floating islands

Back on the boat, the guide explained that since the islands had become a popular tourist destination, life had changed for the islanders. The government now recognised them and a school and hospital had been built, and some islands had electricity generators and satellites for TV. Motorboats were replacing the traditional reed boats for real transport (other than for tourism) and many islanders wore jeans when there were no tourists around to see them out of their traditional costumes.

It was interesting to get a glimpse of what life had been like on the floating islands, and to some extent what it is still like. It's great that tourism has brought both necessities and luxuries to the people of this fascinating region - though as we headed to the next stop on our tour, I wondered how "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" adds to their quality of life.

Travelled By

Craig and Linda Martin

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