The reed islands of Lake Titicaca

Motorbikes are not quiet at the bottom of the food chain, there are bicycles, but they don't tend to stray onto the main roads, sticking to the dirt paths that often run alongside. Should I ever forget, there's always a friendly 10 ton truck ready to remind me of my place in the chain, careering head on in the opposite direction, overtaking on a blind uphill bend, forcing me off the road. There is never any aggression in such manoeuvres, the drivers often wave as they pass and any smile is genuine with no trace of malice. Heading towards lake Titicaca on an ordinary road with a broken line running down the middle, I decide to try out my new dominant retreat. The idea is to switch on the full beam, hold my ground, with the hope that any oncoming lorry, bus or pickup will give way, allowing me to stay on the road. For around an hour I have around a 70% success rate, until I’m on a rather narrow piece of road, when a big red tipper truck pulls out around a colourfully painted green bus, both approaching in the opposite direction. I switch on my beam, no response, holding my line the gap begins to narrow, still nothing, at witch point a pickup truck appears on the far right of the truck, I´m now facing three vehicles, all heading towards me, I very quickly decide to throw in the towel, heading straight for the dirt track just beyond the road. Like I say, there’s always someone happy to help if you lose track of your place in the chain.

I’m welcomed aboard the old, flat bottomed boat with a flash of twisted white and gold teeth, owned by the skipper, one of the Uros people, who inhabit the reed islands of Lake Titicaca. The boat is floating in green algae, the result of an environmental disaster a decade ago, where heavy rains caused the lake to rise, flooding many towns and villages, drawing out the contents of their sewers back into the lake. It's a good few miles out onto the lake before the algae gives way to clear waters, a few miles more and the boat begins to navigate a dense maze of reed lanes, the reeds so high only local knowledge could possibly know where they lead . Every ten to fifteen minutes the boat stalls, the propeller is checked, cleared of weeds, the engine tinkered with for a while, then, with much love and patients, the motor is cranked back into life. Although the boats seen better days, it’s been creatively maintained, with a 1980´s Renault automatic gear shift used to select forward or reverse, the steering wheel salvaged from a Morris Minor, the ignition switch gaffa taped to the dash, its wires disappearing into the hull. Andean folk song waft out of an antiquated speaker, wired up to an told cassette play, while the sun is kept out with an old telecoms calendar taped to the windscreen, leaving just enough space to look out on the the water ahead.

After an hour or two a group of reed islands appear in the distance. The Uros people left the main land in reed boats, ironically, to escape the tyrannical Incas. Living off fish and birds, they eventually developed a technique where they made floating islands from the abundant "Totera" reeds, building a network of islands, some dedicated to agriculture, while on others they built reed huts for shelter. Stepping onto the island, the edge has some give, but a few steps forward and it feels very solid and secure. I’m welcomed with a cup of coca tea and invited into one of the huts. There is a comfortable double bed, raised from the floor on piles of reeds, high in the opposite corner, perhaps rather surprisingly, a black and white television crackles away. Although there is a certain amount of tourism, the Uros people still live on the islands, educate their children of the islands schools, have medical facilities and even today maintain islands dedicated to agriculture, this is not a theme park, with each island producing electricity through solar panels. The island are secured with stakes driven into the bed of the lake, tied down with ropes, new reeds constantly added to compensate for the decay below. Outside some of the families are cooking and I´m handed what is very similar to a sweat Yorkshire pudding. The fires are contained in large steel bulbs, raised above the island surface on legs or files of rocks, to prevent the tinder setting light to the vulnerable reeds. One of the elders, a strong imposing figure, explains a bit about the reed boats they build today, they look as you would expect, very reed like, but for added stability and buoyancy they now used plastic bottles with the lids on, hidden from view, beneath the woven reed work. He doesn’t seem to feel he has to pander to some idealistic image of the islanders way of life or how it has developed, going on to explain that the traditional embroidery depicting animals and idols, sold by islanders, as well as traders through out Bolivia and Peru, emerged as a result of techniques taught by missionaries in the 1950´s, rather than aged old traditions, the reasons you can buy so much of this style of textile, it´s what visitors want and expect. Boarding a reed boat to head off to another island, the burly elder, who seems as if he’ll propel us across the lake in no time, hands the oars at the stern of the boat to his two young daughters, while he goes off to make an important call on his mobile. These people have survived the Incas and the Spanish, I just hope they can coupe with the onslaught of globalisation.

After a couple of days island hoping I arrived back at the port of Puno, where we docked next to the "Yavari" an old steam ship built by the James Watt Foundry in Birmingham over one hundred and forty years ago. The question is, how did such an enormous ship end up on Lake Titicaca, 12,500 feet above sea level, land locked beyond the Andes. Well, in October 1862, the "Mayola" set sail from England with the entire ship broken down into kit form, no piece weighing more than 112 pounds. Having rounded Cape Horn, it eventually docked at Arica, - at the time part of Peru, now within Chile - where it was loaded onto train carriages to continue on to Tacna, each part was then taken by mule, across the Andes, eventually being assembled and launched on the lake six years later.