Travel to Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca defies expectations at every turn. Stretching about 190 kilometers long and 80 kilometers wide at 3,812 meters above sea level, this inland sea covers around 8,372 square kilometers, roughly the size of Corsica, and reaches depths of about 280 meters. The lake straddles the border between Peru and Bolivia, with close to 40 percent of its waters, the eastern side, lying in Bolivia. The name is most often traced to the Aymara words for puma and rock, popularly rendered as ‘stone of the puma,’ though its true meaning is uncertain and may instead relate to the sacred rock on Isla del Sol.

But statistics barely capture what makes Titicaca extraordinary. This is the highest commercially navigable lake on Earth, where the thin air lends the water an almost surreal clarity, the deep cobalt surface appearing endless until, on the clearest days, the line between lake and sky dissolves altogether. The Aymara and Quechua peoples who have lived here for more than 2,000 years regard the lake as a living being, the spiritual heart of the altiplano. The snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real rise beyond 6,000 meters on the eastern horizon, while dozens of islands dot the surface, many still home to communities whose traditions reach back well before the Spanish conquest.