The floating islands of Lake Titicaca. They’re one of Peru’s largest tourist attractions… and today I went out to see them.

My Lonely Planet guidebook suggested that I wake up at 6 AM and head down to the Puno dock around that time so as to catch a boat out to the islands, but I am not a morning person and 6 AM did not sound like fun to me. So I slept in until 10 AM, left my hostel around 11, and had secured a boat out to the islands by no later than 11:30.

20 Soles ($7.21 USD) got me a round-trip ticket to the floating reed islands and I was quickly ushered on-board an old wooden boat with a dozen or more Peruvian and Chilean tourists (none of whom spoke English).

There were two workers on-board the boat – each of which was probably around my age or younger. One of the young men was in charge of steering the boat (the captain – pictured below) and the other young man was in charge of pumping water out of the bottom of the boat using a metal and rubber hand-crank, so that the engine didn’t flood.

The island of Uros (the name given to the collection of floating islands just outside of Puno, Peru) was just a short distance from the docks. After a few minutes in the boat we entered a narrow channel of reeds leading out to the islands… and soon I was able to see hundreds of reed houses, boats and reed structures in in the distance.

When we entered the main island area out boat was docked and we all quickly jumped onto the collection of floating reeds.

The earth was squishy. It surprised me just how bouncy the island actually was. I knew the place was constructed solely out of reeds, but for some reason I expected it to feel like walking on hay bales. Instead, it felt like walking on a big, wet sponge.

At the first island we visited there was a small area where some of the tourists gathered around a Spanish-speaking tour guide and listened to him discuss the history of the islands. And behind this small information circle were some women selling crafts in front of their humble homes.

There was little else to do on the islands other than look at the crafts being sold. I didn’t want to be rude, so I bought one of the 2 Sole bracelets you see in the foreground of the photo below. The one I bought is dark blue and white.

Then we hopped back on our wooden boat and floated just a short distance over to another, larger floating island.

This new island was much larger than the first. On it there was a small observation tower, a restaurant, some market-type shops where you could buy fruit and packaged food items, and of course, a bunch of women selling Peruvian souvenirs.

The woman on the right in the photo below isn’t one of the native women who live on these reed islands. In reality, she is a tourist from Lima, Peru who was actually on my boat. While out on the reed islands she got dressed up in the local apparel and was snapping photos with her entire family.

Do you see the green pom-poms hanging from the woman’s neck? I ended up buying a pair of these while I was on this floating island. They cost me 20 Soles and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them (because they are really designed for women to weave into their hair), but they are awesome!

When the woman saw me taking pictures of her, she insisted that I get in and take a photo with her as well. She made me feel very tall.

And that was pretty much it. After about 30 minutes on the second floating island we all got back in our sinking wooden boat and puttered back to Puno.

On the way back I sat on the roof of the boat and spoke with three young travelers from Chile. They didn’t speak hardly any English… and I don’t speak but a few words of Spanish… so it wasn’t much of a conversation. But we were able to get quite a bit across and I had fun drifting back to Puno on the roof of the boat while the floating islands disappeared off into the distance.