LAGO TITICACA

Titicaca Lake is situated on the border between Peru and Bolivia. It is the highest- placed, navigated lake in the world, having the altitude of 3812 m. Why this lake is so famous and everybody who visits South America wants to see it? This lake has about 41 islands and many of those islands have amazing histories about Inca civilization. They say that this unique civilization actually has started on one of those islands…

I visited Titicaca on the Bolivian side, it is easily accessible when you go from Peru to La paz. You stop in Copacabana- a very pictoresque small town. I recommend you to stay at least one day in Copacabana as there are lots of things to do! The town is quite small, you can visit it in a few hours, as well is very touristic as it is the starting point to go to Isla del Sol. However, from Copacabana you can do many easy trekkings, just near the lake. And that’s what we did 🙂 We actually didn’t know where we would stop or sleep. We wanted to reach a tiny village called Sampaya, it was written that it is only 10 km to get to this place however they have mistaken 10km with 17km 😀

Copacabana- Sampaya = 17km, some photos from the trekking …

Which way to take and of course how long still to Sampaya?!

On the way to Sampaya we met lots of people working on their fields to have food for the rest of the year. It is amazing to see how we live differently from them, how our cultures differ. Mostly everywhere there were women working on the fields with their traditional clothes. Although it was as warm as hell they were working with their few pairs of skirts and jumpers. Plus, they were working as hard as men despite of their age…

Finally we arrived to Sampaya,we were the only tourists in this area. What’s more we didn’t meet any tourists on the way to Sampaya, only some local people. As it comes to these local people, they were very curious about our countries, especially about the weather, what we drink and eat and which language we speak.

My superguide, without him I would be 100%  lost 😀

meeting local people

When we came back to Copacabana we took a boat to Isla del Sol. The main attraction of Titicaca Lake and the reason why there are so many tourists in Copacabana 😉 You take the boat around two hours but if you are coming from Peru do not forget to change the hour of your watch… we forgot about it and as there are only two boats daily going to Isla del Sol we skipped this boat…but we were lucky cause one guy offered us a private boat just for 20 soles more than normally so we could still go to this island.

View on Isla de la Luna from Isla del Sol

Why Isla del Sol is so relevant for Bolivian and Peruvian people? The legends say that first Incas were born on this island: Manco Capac and his sister. What’s more, they believe that the Sun was born here and that’s why this island is called Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun).

Some pics from Copacabana: