lake-titicaca Photos

Situated in Peru and Bolivia, at an altitude of 3,812 m, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. Also, it is the largest lake in South America by volume of water, and out of all lakes in the world higher than 2,000 meters in altitude, Titicaca has the biggest debit. With a total area of 9,710 square kilometers, the average depth is 140-180 m, and in its deepest point it reaches 280 m.

The region of the lake is also famous as the region that gave the world its most popular vegetable, the potato.

The lakescape is especially beautified by its islas flotantes (floating islands), built and inhabited by the Uros, a pre-Inca population who escaped from the Colla and the Inca by building themselves their own floating territories.

These floating islands are made exclusively of floating reeds (named by locals, totora). An island can last up to 30 years, and its maintenance means adding new layers of totora regularly (every 3 months), to replace the layers that rot underneath. Two or three related families usually live on an island, in huts also made of reeds.

The Uros population totals around 2,000 persons, but only a few hundred of them still live on the islands, the rest having moved to the shores of the lake.