Lake Titicaca
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This basin high in the Andes on the border of Bolivia and Peru is the highest altitude shipping lake in the world as well as the largest lake in South America. Lake Titicaca has 41 islands, some of them made from reeds by their inhabitants, most of them populated and is fed by numerous rivers and streams carrying glacial melt and rain water, so the water is very clean. The islands have become the lake’s main tourist attraction. The reed islands were originally built this way for defensive purposes - they’re portable to a certain extent, using weed that grows in the lake. ‘Proper’ land islands are used for farming and rearing animals. These are the islands on which visitors can stay; there aren’t any hotels, but some local families have a room which the rent out to guests through tour operators. Evening performance of traditional dance and music are held each evening for the benefit of visitors. Isla del Sol (also called Isla del Titicaca) on the Bolivian side is the lake’s largest island and has the best tourist infrastructure - tourism is the island’s main income. Several sets of ruins have been found on the lake’s shore, and archaeologists have found traces of some of the oldest American civilisations here and the lake is very significant in Inca mythology, believed to be the spot where the two children of the sun arrived on earth.
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Photo by flickr user soylentgreen23
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