LAKE TITICACA
Lake Titicaca is the world's highest navigable lake and the center of a region where thousands of subsistence farmers eke out a living fishing in its icy waters, growing potatoes in the rocky land at its edge or herding llama and alpaca at altitudes that leave Europeans and North Americans gasping for air. It is also where traces of the rich Indian past still stubbornly cling, resisting in past centuries the Spanish conquistadors' aggressive campaign to erase Inca and preInca cultures and, in recent times, the lure of modernization.
We visited several islands on the lake. First, on the Peruvian side, we left from Puno and spent a night on Amantani Island. Then, crossing over into Bolivia, we took a day trip from Copacabana to the Sun Island.