Lake Titicaca

The mysterious, gemlike waters of Lake Titicaca have been sacred to many cultures. The lake was the cradle of Andean civilisation and remains enduringly known as the birthplace of the Inca empire.

Lake Titicaca lies at the northern edge of the Altiplano, and straddles the Bolivia-Peru border. At over 3,800 metres, it is the world’s highest navigable lake.

Lake Titicaca’s intensely blue water is particularly mesmerising when viewed through the crystal sharp light of the Altiplano. Viewed from the north, the lake’s outline resembles the shapes of a puma, fish and man – forms also found in Peru’s mystifying Nazca lines.

The Strait of Tiquina divides Lake Titicaca into its small and large sections. The small southern section is called Wiñay Marka (Aymara for “Eternal City”) and is comparatively shallow, at an average depth of only some 5m. This has sustained the legend of a city lying hidden beneath the lake – a Bolivian Atlantis.

Lake Titicaca’s original name was Khota Mama (Aymara for “Mother Lake”). The lake was only renamed Titicaca after the Conquest, when Spanish Conquistadores misunderstood what the natives meant when they referred to the “Island of Titi Qala”.

The Spaniards mistakenly thought the natives were referring to the lake’s name when they were in fact referring to a rock (the “Rock of the Titi”) on the Island of the Sun. That rock is now more commonly called the Sacred Rock.

The Sacred Rock lies at the northern tip of the Island of the Sun, near where Inca legends record the rising from the depths of Lake Titicaca of the first Inca Manco Capac and his queen Mama Ocllo.

The Island of the Sun is one of two islands in southern Lake Titicaca that are uniquely important to Andean prehistory. The Island of the Sun is the largest island in the lake, and is carpeted with thousands of agricultural terraces dating from Inca and pre-Inca times.

The smaller of the two islands is the Island of the Moon (also called Koati). The Incas revered these islands and dedicated them to the Sun and the Moon.

When the Conquistadores first arrived at Lake Titicaca in the 1530s, local Indians told them that the sun had risen into the sky for the first time from a sacred island (The Island of the Sun) in the great lake, and that the island housed a series of ancient temples.

Soon after the Conquest, the Spanish appropriated the sacred nature of Lake Titicaca and its islands for Christianity. To this day, the Bolivian town of Copacabana, which occupies a promontory jutting out into the lake, remains one of the most important Catholic pilgrimage destinations in South America.