Copacabana lies on a peninsula into Lake Titicaca some 158 kilometers from La Paz at 3,840 meters of altitude. This town for many is the very epicenter of the mystical region that gave rise to the largest South American empires such as the Tiwanakotans and Incas. Today Copacabana continues to be a popular pilgrimage site for Bolivian and Peruvian Catholics and believers in the Andean Cosmovisión alike. This syncretism of beliefs is embodied in the sacred “Virgen Morena”, a 500 year old wooden statue of the virgen Mary in the Basilica of Copacabana. The faithful flock to this sacred site for both catholic mass and the tradition ch’alla indigenous blessing. Near to Copacabana lie numerous pre-Incan ruins such as Baño del Inca, the Intikala, and the mis-named “Horca del Inca” (Horca means gallows), however this incredible site is actually a complex calendrical stone that the marauding Spaniards could only imagine as a gallows. The nearby islands of the Sun and Moon house vast temple complexes and feature prominently in Incan and Andean cosmovisión.

For information about tours to Copacabana and the Lake Titicaca with it´s islands Sun Island and Moon Island, including an overnight stay at Hotel Inca Utama, please click here.