Uros are a pre-
Incan people who live on
floating island in
Lake Titicaca,
Peru. The Uros use bundles of dried
totora reeds to make
reed boats (
balsas mats), and to make the islands themselves.
The Uros islands at 3810 meters above sea level are just five kilometers west from Puno port. Around 2,000 descendants of the Uros were counted in the 1997 census, although only a few hundred still live on and maintain the islands; most have moved to the mainland.
The Uros do not reject modern technology: some boats have motors, some houses have solar panels to run appliances such as
televisions, and the main island is home to an Uros-run
FM radio station, which plays music for several hours a day.
