From Quantum Island

La Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca is located at 3800m altitude. It's a magical place.

La Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca is located at 3800m altitude. An Ancient holy place, legends say the sun was formed in his sacred rock, from where also emerged Manco Capac and Mama Occlio (Adam and Eve) to found the city of Cusco and the Inca Empire. Today it is inhabited by three Aymara communities.

Two hours by boat from the nearest town, it has remained relatively isolated for a long time, until the arrival, not many years ago, of tourism and motorboats.

The island keeps ancestral rites, like sacrifices of llamas or night ceremonies at mountain tops. They live in harmony with the earth, growing, grazing animals and fish, and the lake gives them life. They make offerings to Pachamama every time they drink, when they kill animals, in ceremonies with coca leaves.

 It is a magical place: eagles predict the fate of the people; about every hundred years a woman is born capable of becoming fire and fly; gold comes and goes predicting the death of the one who finds it; souls that attack at night; underground roads reaching Cusco from below the lake that turn old anyone who crosses them; ancient people who inhabited the island before the formation of the sun, secretly growing and appearing at night in certain parts of the island; a sunken city below the lake from where gold and ceramic figures are taken and exhibited at the small local museum; and some even say the Island is Noah's Ark and the lake was formed because of the Flood.

I went there for the first time in 2006 and since then I have returned 5 times, first attracted by the landscape and calm, and later I started to realize that the island was much more, a way of understanding the world around us in a completely different way from the Western vision; other values, other priorities make this a very special place.