lake titicaca

A joke, told by a guy who lives on Uro, also known as Islas Flotantes:
El Lago Titicaca se divide entre dos países, Peru y Bolivia. Peru tiene la parte Titi y Bolivia la caca.

Wunderteam took a boat tour of the islands today (we were the only non-Peruvians). Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the Uro people decided they wanted to get away from the warring Collacas so they got a bunch of totora reeds and pretty much wove a giant island where they have lived ever since. It´s crazy, right?

When you stand on the floating island it kind of feels like a waterbed. They make their houses out of the same woven reeds too, and they also eat the inside of the reeds for food, which they serve up alongside the chickens and ducks and fish and other stuff that they eat. Their boats are also woven and have puma heads on the front - they look viking -like. Over time the people living on Uro have intermixed with Aymara-speaking settlers, but they pretty much live the same way they always have, out on their giant floating island, except that now they move beyond subsistence by selling handmade (a relative term) touristic items.

Cultural commodities and underwater basket weaving. Where am I?

Tomorrow we leave for Cuzco via bus. We`ll actually be at a lower altitude when we finally reach Machu Picchu.
In preparation I am about to eat at a restaurant called Machu Pizza.