Although there are about 48 of these islands, most guided tours limit themselves to the largest, Huacavacani, where several Indian families live alongside a floating Seventh Day Adventist missionary school. The islands are made from layer upon layer of tortora reeds, the dominant plant in the shallows of Titicaca and a source of food (the inner juicy bits near the roots) for the people, as well as the basic material for roofing, walling and fishing rafts. During the rainy season months of November to February it's not unusual for some of the islands to move about the surface of the lake.

The easiest way to get to the islands is on a short two- to three-hour trip (from $3.50) with one of the tour agencies in Puno. Alternatively, you can go independently with the skipper of one of the many launches that leave from the port in Puno about every thirty minutes, or take the daily public transport boat leaving at 9am, usually getting back between noon and 1pm (always check with the captain for the time they plan to depart the islands).

There are only six hundred Uros Indians living on the islands these days, and most of these are a more recent mix with Quechua and Aymaru blood; many of those you might meet actually live on the mainland, only travelling out to sell their wares to the tourists; most are a mixture of the original Uros and the larger Aymara tribe. When the Incas controlled the region, they considered the Uros so poor – almost subhuman – that the only tribute required of them was a section of hollow cane filled with lice.

Life on the islands has certainly never been easy: the inhabitants have to go some distance to find fresh water, and the bottoms of the reed islands rot so rapidly that fresh matting has to be constantly added above. Islands last around twelve to fifteen years and it takes two months of communal work to start a new one. The coppery faces of the people literally reflect the strong sunlight bouncing off the surface of the lake, relentlessly almost every day. More than half the islanders have converted to Catholicism, and the largest community is very much dominated by its evangelical school. Thirty years ago the Uros were a proud fishing tribe, in many ways the guardians of Titicaca, but the 1980s, particularly, saw a rapid devastation of their traditional values. Many foreign visitors have been put off by what they experience on landing at the island – sometimes a veritable mobbing by young children speaking a few words of English ("sweets", "money", "what's your name?" and "give it to me"). However, things have improved over recent years and you do still get a glimpse of a very unusual way of life and the opportunity to ride on a tortora reed raft.