Sun Island & Lake Titicaca

On the border with Peru, Lake Titicaca is astonishingly beautiful and is said to be the birthplace of the Inca empire.

Straddling the border with Peru, Lake Titicaca is often astonishingly beautiful, impossibly tranquil and always ready to charm. The main portal to the lake on the Bolivian side is the quaint town of Copacabana, a million miles away from the glamour of its namesake in Rio. From here you head out by boat into the great sparkling expanse of the highest navigable lake in the world and towards the traditional Isla de la Luna and the Isla del Sol, the largest of all the islands on Lake Titicaca.

The Sun Island is a remote island with no vehicles and basic farming on rocky agricultural terraces. There are some 800 families living on the island and two small villages. Subsistence farming and fishing are the main activities, supplemented by a bit of tourism. The island also has over 80 pre-inca ruins, with people living on the islands since the 15th century. It is from here that the Inca god Viracocha was said to have emerged to create the sun and at 3,812 metres above sea level, it is harder to get much closer to it - Lake Titicaca will leave you breathless in more ways than one. 

Want to see more of Lake Titicaca? Visit the Peruvian side