Isla del Sol

Isla del Sol ("Island of the Sun") sits in the Bolivian waters of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,812 metres. In Inca cosmology, the island was the place where the sun god Inti created the first Inca, Manco Cápac, and his sister-wife Mama Ocllo, sending them out from a sacred rock formation on the island's northern end to found Cusco and establish the Inca civilisation. The island became a major pilgrimage destination under the Inca Empire, who built temples, terraces, and a ceremonial complex around the sacred rock, which pilgrims would approach along a stone ritual path still visible today.

Archaeological evidence shows the island was a centre of ritual activity for cultures predating the Inca by over a thousand years, including the Tiwanaku civilisation associated with nearby Puma Punku; underwater archaeology conducted in Lake Titicaca since the 1990s has recovered offerings of gold, ceramics, and the remains of a sacrificed llama from the lake bed near the island, consistent with accounts of Inca rituals performed at the lake's edge. The island's roughly 800 families continue to farm its terraced hillsides using techniques largely unchanged since pre-Inca times, and no motor vehicles are permitted on the island.