South America: Titicaca lake

The lake of Titicaca is located in South America on the border of Peru and Bolivia and is in a mountain environment. The landforms consist of many floating islands which are composed of layers and layers of totora reeds which mostly rot from top to bottom and sprout new reeds at the top. They are also composed of damaging and threatining blue/green weeds which prevent local uro indians from getting fresh water, fish and potatoes.


 The community i've chosen is Colquecachi which is located on the island of Amantani. The life style of the colquecachi people is that women wear traditional dresses and have chamber pots under their beds. They are 3-5 hours away from the local town but is worth the trip because once they are there they can buy warm clothing for their family, food, crockery, utensils etc. They have kitchens underneath the house that use firewood to heat up food which are mainly potatoes, corn, rice and soup. They use boats made of straw for transport and usually last for 6 months.


 A leader of the Colquecachi people is named El Inca the deceased but still leader of the Inca people. People in the Colquecachi community view change in the way that they only started out as a few communities and they then started building up their communities by using the local rivers and material and food to live.