The Uros people of Lake Titicaca have a unique way of life - they build their own islands, float them on the lake and then proceed to live on them. Here is a glimpse of their world, where their homemade "islands" are truly "in the stream".This small tribe of South American indigenous retain a great deal of a culture that goes back millennia and one whose unique domestic arrangements stem from that age old fear - the dread of suppression by other, stronger and more populous peoples.
Lake Titicaca itself affords a deal of protection. Isolated and over three thousand meters above sea level, the lake itself offers - simply by its relative isolation (even in modern day Peru) - some protection from the unwanted attentions of others. However, at some point before recorded history a member of the Uros had the bright idea to do something extraordinary with the reeds that grow prolifically along the banks of the lake - the largest in South America (by volume).
Trifter
