Lake Titicaca


Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca
Reed boats on Lake Titicaca.

Episode 16 - After leaving the High Peak, our heroes are led to Lake Titicaca.

Lake Titicaca, lake, east central South America, the largest on the continent, and the highest navigable lake in the world (about 3810 m/12,500 ft above sea level). Extending from southeastern Peru to western Bolivia, it is 177 km (110 mi) long with an average width of 56 km (35 MI). The surrounding region was one of the seats of early Native American civilization; it contains many architectural remains, some of which antedate the Incan period.

Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Reed Boats and Tetola - Totora Reed

Reed boats


Episode 16 - The groups new friend, Lana, shows them the boats and village of her people which are constructed out of reeds.

Afloat on the highest inland sea, Aymara-speaking " UROS ", the island people of Lake Titicaca, fashion their lives around the buoyant "totora reed". Pulled from shallows on the Peruvian side, the reeds are piled up on the lake bed , forming a spongy substrate for island communities. Thickly matted, it forms the "ground" upon which they built reed villages, boats and houses. In the clear and deep icy waters of the 3,200 square-mile lake, the Uros fish from reed boats called balsas. Women of the surrounding 2.5 mile-high Altiplano, one of Peru's poorest areas, earn tourist dollars from colorful fabrics, woven in ancient tradition.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6502/titicaca.htm

Desert South of Lake Titicaca - Atacama Desert

 

Episode 17 - After leaving Lake Titicaca, Esteban and company travel through a desert as they search for Pachamama's Mountain.

Atacama Desert [ätäkä'mä] , arid region, c.600 mi (970 km) long, N Chile, extending south from the border of Peru. The desert itself, c.2,000 ft (610 m) above sea level, is a series of dry salt basins flanked on the W by the Pacific coastal range, averaging c.2,500 ft (760 m) high, and on the E by the Andes. There is practically no vegetation; rain has virtually never been recorded in some localities. Of the streams descending from the Andes only the Loa River reaches the Pacific. Antofagasta and other regional ports are without protected anchorages and are subject to frequent and severe earthquakes. The Atacama has been a source of great nitrate and copper wealth. The first European to cross the forbidding waste was Diego de Almagro, the Spanish conquistador, in 1537.

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0805151.html

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