Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca, 90 minutes after sunrise, the sun was very intense, even that early in the morning.  Glad of a long sleeve shirt, jeans, straw hat and sunglasses, and a jacket in my backpack to ward off the breeze off the lake I was ready to experience all I've read about: the straw boats, floating islands, the isolated peoples and the climb up that mountain on Tequali island to 13,000 feet.  The boat was full, and just out of the harbor we were surrounded by miles of the reed whose roots when cut into two by four foot blocks of root and reed are the flotation source of the floating islands.  From the harbor to the deeper part of the lake the reeds have had a channel cut thru them for boat access.  The reeds grow in water 4 meters deep or less, deeper and they die for lack of light.  The reeds range during their growth from thumb round and smaller, and up to 12 feet tall. These reeds are toothbrushes, cellery, boats, islands, houses, mats...  Their color is dark green, chartruse, yellow, tan & brown.  Our first stop was a floating island supporting five families, about thirty people pre-school to grandparents.  All were barefoot trodding around on thesquishy reeds.  The islands last about thirty years, but at least monthly an additional 8-12 inches of reeds must be added, or they get their feet wet.  The grandpa pushed his hand down about a foot thru the reeds, tugged and pulled up a black mush which he squeezed  much water out of, hence the need for additional monthly layers of reeds.  They demonstrated with a model, how the build the island in the beginning.  There is a semi-circle saw blade-knife on a long pole, which is pushed down to the bottom, at a lesser deep area of growing reeds and sawed further down thru the growing reeds to a depth of two feet of reeds & roots, and then these are brought up to the existing island, and a pole is inserted into the center of the rectangular black mass of root and reeds, then these rectangular blocks of root-reed are lashed together, and floated next to the existing island made decades earlier.  More & more blocks of root-reeds are lashed together, until the new island is formed to their liking, about 30x45 feet.  As we traveled amoung the 56-60 islands they were all about the same shape, to my eye.  During, after the roots-reeds are afloat bundles if reeds 6-8 inches thick are repeatedly cross-hatched on top of the roots blocks.  additional stacks of reeds are placed on top of the 'floor' of reeds a little bigger than the house footprint, maybe another 18" above the floor.  The houses have reed mat roofs, and light weight doors, no windows.  Houses store stuff hung from the walls with some stuff on the house floor.  No need for windows, they live, eat, cook, work and play in the island.  The houses are arranged in a three sidded rectangle so that the center is used for living.  The houses (& sheds-storerooms) are about three four feet from the back of the islands back edge, where more stuff-junk, aluminum boats with outboards are docked.  The reed boats are docked at the front end of the island, to show them off.  They have a 10 foot tall 'watchtower', and some decorative devices indicating welcome to the tourists.  The reed boats are simply banana shaped reedsoverlapping one another, until there is a banana twenty feet long and curved up at both ends (some have monster heads at the foreward tips, the diameter of the banana is aboutfour + feet at the center and 12-18" at either tip.  Well that is half of the boat.  Tie two together, and you have a single boat.  Then to make the"Mercedes-Benz" boat, take two double boats, attach a wooden floor, and a roofed area--which on many M-B boats, folks can climb on the roof and sit. Two oars propel this monster ( I did it for a couple of minutes.).  It can be rowed from a sitting or standing position, or pushed by an aluminum boat with an outboard motor as the rower.  That's the traditional, the modern touches:  empty coke bottles with the caps screwed on tightly, 2,000 bottles are wrapped in tarps or plastic, and the reed vaneer is wrapped round the bottles; this inginuity lightens the load, and reduces the rowing power needed.  Another is solar cells for the one cell phone per island, not only for gossoping, but to get fire, medical...help, also saw several boombox radios, and one light per habited dwelling.   Another bigger, more people island had a kitchen, our island had a 2-3 foot square thin rock on which the women cooked, again the reed, dryed were the fuel...they mentioned fire was a risk.   The capital island--just regular but bigger, and with a medical office (or barge docked along side), a barge modern looking church dock there, and a couple of school building ( I assume barges, but I couldn't see the lower part of the school).  The president is elected by the 2-3,000 citizens, for one year, all vote, the pres can be male or female, but has to be from an island that hasn't had a president (recently). Each island has a chair(wo)man, who others must obey, or leave, I think.   Well that's what I know remember.  Don't understand, but the men seem mostly thin, but every woman is very over weight, and a couple of times the mentioned womens health concerns, even teenage girls were getting heavy, but I don't remember a chubby man....