While planning my trip to Peru, I knew I had to pick and choose my destinations with care with the limited time I had in hand (only 9 days). Of course, Machu Picchu was a no-brainer. But it was hard to choose other places to visit.
A friend of mine who recently visited Peru highly recommended exploring the Amazon jungles near Puerto Maldonado. But I had a dream – to explore the highest navigable lake in the world. Could I possibly squeeze that in along with the Amazon jungle experience? Unfortunately, no, I had to make a choice.
I eventually chose Lake Titicaca.
There are mixed reviews on Lake Titicaca on the web. Some people really enjoyed it, while some were meh. I can understand that it’s not a place for everyone. I enjoyed it, but that’s because I have never really visited a place like this before. If you have explored other famous lakes, you might not be too impressed.
The good
Once you get on the lake, it’s heavenly. I went on two separate boating excursions:
- Taquile island and Amantani island
- Uros floating islands (will be covering this in a later post)
The Taquile and Amantani island visit was a mind-blowing experience, and Titicaca was a must-visit just for that alone.
The bad
Lake Titicaca is on the banks of Puno – pretty much a dead-end city with nothing much to do. I had a great time on the lake, but because the water gets choppy after 2 pm, I had to spend my afternoons and evenings just hanging around the town. And apart from a little shopping, and some nice restaurants, there’s not much to do or see.
About Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca extends from Peru into Bolivia. And Taquile island is one of the spots from where you can spot the Bolivian border.
I was pretty excited about this (for some strange reason). After all, it’s just another coast. But it felt exciting to see the border of another country 😀. What I wasn’t prepared for is the sheer, raw beauty of the lake.
I also wasn’t prepared for the size of the lake. From the shore, it didn’t look that big. It wasn’t until we were on the lake, and I realized what I thought was the other side of the lake was, in actuality, just a promontory.
When we crossed that, I saw we were surrounded by water on all sides, with nothing around us! It felt like we were in an ocean 🌊 . Even more surprising was that the water in the lake was a little salty. The tour guide explained to us that it was actually an ancient ocean!
This may be a good time to explain some key facts about Lake Titicaca.
- Surface Area – 3,230 square miles (8,370 square km).
- Length – As you can see from this map of Lake Titicaca, the lake stretches from the northwest to the southeast for a distance of about 120 miles (190 km).
- Width – At its widest point, the lake measures about 50 miles (80 km).
- Average Depth – 107 meters
- Maximum Depth – 920 feet (280 meters). The deepest part of the lake is in the northeast corner; some sources put this maximum depth closer to 1000 feet (305 meters).
Pretty impressive, right!
The water was a bit choppy when we started, and it was pouring heavily (we visited in late Feb, which is the rainy season).
I was mentally prepared for a washout. I had initially planned to trek through the island, but I wasn’t feeling like doing it in the rain. My shoes weren’t waterproof, and I didn’t want to risk damage to my DSLR camera ☹️.
Thankfully, just as we started nearing Taquile island (it’s about 2 hours from Puno), the sun shone through, and I was able to take pics from the boat.
Taquile island
Isla de Taquile is an island on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca (not the Bolivian side). This island is special because there are no roads for cars, no WiFi, and the locals, Taquileños, live by some pretty cool rituals! It also has some great views of the lake!
One of the other attractions of Isla Taquile is the weaving work, which dates back to ancient times. It is one of the first things you will notice as you dock as it is the island uniform; the locals wear it with pride! UNESCO recognises Taquile Island textiles.
The knitting is really intricate. I tried replicating some of their designs (check my insta), but my chubby fingers could not figure it out.
What they call knitting is very different from the way we normally do it. Even the knitting needles used are different! This is no basic knit and purl.
If you see the photo to the right, you can see her holding what looks like a spindle and doing a little weaving. She’s just casually walking around the island working.
The nice thing is that even the men on the island knit and weave. I wish I had a photo of the men on the island. It’s probably somewhere in my camera. I”ll share it on Insta if I find it.
The Fabulous Views
Taquile island is very sparsely inhabited. Plus, because I was visiting during the off-peak period, there were no other tourists either. This meant the freedom to have a long, leisurely hike across the island and enjoy the beautiful vistas without any pressure.
Here are some photos.
The island is quite fertile, and the locals grow a lot of potatoes and quinoa here. We walked through potato fields and tiny villages with stone walls and thatched roofs.
The hike across the island took about an hour. As hikes go, it should have been a fairly easy one. However, because of the altitude (4050 m above sea level), I did have to take short breaks in between to catch my breath.
Leaving Taquile island with this one last photo of the lake.
Amantani island
After Taquile island, we proceeded to our next stop – Amantani island. This island is close by and just as scenic. Unfortunately, we had spent so much time on Taquile island that we didn’t have too much time for sightseeing.
Amantani Island is a bit more modern than Taquile. The people speak Spanish (in Taquile, people speak Quechua). So, I was able to converse with them with my limited Spanish 😆. They are also dressed in modern regular clothing and seemed more aware of the world than the people in Taquile island.
I met up with a local couple who run homestays there and had lunch with them. I wish I had photos to share with you all, but they seemed awkward around my camera, and once the lunch came, I forgot about the photos and just inhaled all it all in (starving from the trek and a piss poor early morning breakfast). The food was all made with local ingredients grown on the island. I had a steaming bowlful of quinoa soup, followed by rice and vegetables. Simple, but hearty and so delicious! One of the best meals I had in Peru.
After lunch, I just lazed around the island, ignoring our boat captain, who insisted we had to return. Apparently, after 2 pm, the water gets very rough. I looked at the calm lake and thought he wants to get home and nap.
But no! As soon as I got into the boat, I saw he was right. The waves were actually 6-8 metres tall and pretty frightening. It was such a weird feeling to express such high waves in a lake, and that too when the sky was so sunny!
Anyway, I made it back alive to tell the tale 😊, and even make one other trip to the lake – this time to the Uros floating islands – I will be featuring those soon in my next blog post on Peru.
I hope you enjoyed this write-up on my experience visiting Lake Titicaca and surrounding areas. This is truly a beautiful place with lots of scenic beauty around it.
Watch out for more posts!
Loved the pictures. In fact the first one is something that we all want right now in the age of social distancing. I would love to visit Isla de Taquile and learn more about the weaving work. Have heard so much about Peru. I think I will love the experience around lake Titicaca… yeah such places do not excite everyone.
This place is perfect for social distancing, there are hardly any people.
After reading your post, I think you are right when you said you won’t be too impressed with the lake if you’ve visited other famous lakes in the world. The only thing that is different is the Taquile Island with the locals and their textiles. I think it’s a unique experience to see a woman weaving while walking around the island. 🙂
Yeah, I love the culture and the people there. It’s also pretty scenic.
This is a part of Peru I had no idea about. However it is such a refreshing place. The lake looks nice and serene, the local houses give a village feel and the potato field reminds me of my childhood days when we had a similar but smaller area in our house where we used to grow potatoes.The scenic beauty of the place is marvelous.A cruise on Lake Titicaca looks a great way to relax.
Yes, it’s completely rural, and this island in particular is so cut off. I felt completely transported into a unique, isolated world.
Oh my god! I didn’t even know about Lake Titicaca before. I visited Peru but it was mainly to do the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. If I knew about this and the islands I would have surely visited them. These will now surely go into my bucketlist for my next visit.
I wish I could have done the Inca trail. But with the limited time I had, I thought it might be better to spread out my time in multiple places, rather than hiking. Once I reached Machu Picchu and saw how beautiful the overall area is, I kinda regretted not doing the Inca trail.
Have you blogged about it? Do share a post if so.
Never heard of Lake Titicaca before this post honestly . Although Peru is such a pretty country but all the attention is towards Machu Picchu definitely but i am sure there are other places like these that needs to be brought into highlight. Thanks for coming up with this.
There are so many places to see there – the Amazon river, the high lakes such as Titicaca, the desert. It’s a beautiful country. Machu Picchu is just the icing on the cake.
I can not believe this is a lake! How beautiful! This are just looks so calming and relaxing. I love the culture here! I will have to add this to my to do list!
It’s like a small sea, literally. Huge!
We are sorry we missed visiting in Peru when we were in South America this year. I think I would want to visit Lake Titicaca to enjoy the time out on the water and see the various islands. I would not care that there was no touristy town close by. You certainly did get some fabulous views. And I am glad the weather got better. We will put this in our Peru file for when we finally get back.
Yes, I am glad I went there. I do wish I could have explored the Amazon jungle as well, but unfortunately it was impossible to squeeze both these places into my itinerary.
Titicaca lake very peaceful and relaxing. I love it. I loved the Taquile island on the Lake Titicaca as this island is not having peculiarity of no cars, no WiFi and here locals, Taquileños, have some pretty cool rituals.
I actually have never heard about Lake Titicaca before but I would love to visit this place one day when I am in Peru! Isla de Taquile sounds so perfect to take my husband as there’s no wifi 😁 Seems like a great place to explore the local like.
Haha! It’s so absolutely beautiful and pristine, I guarantee your husband won’t miss his wifi 🙂
WHEN I get to South America, hopefully in 2024, the itinerary will include Titicaca, which will represent a halfway point, as I do aim to start in Cartagena and end at Cabo de Hornos. These scenes only amplify this plan.
That plan sounds delightful! I live on the other side of the world and long vacations can never happen (work), so I will have to plan multiple smaller trips.
I am not done with South America yet!
I will be retired, as of December. The only barrier to longer journeys of discovery would be an ongoing pandemic.
Yeah, that pandemic is putting a pretty big spoiler on travel plans 🙁
I always thought, that this would be an interesting place to visit, ever since we learned about the Incas in grade 6. Thank you for posting.
It was. Apart from the scenic beauty, it’s also a culturally rich and vibrant place. I was surprised by how much I liked it.