Ancient Inca legend tells how, at the beginning of time, the God Wiracocha  emerged  from  lake Titikaka and created the sun, the earth and mankind.

Approaching the island, the old terraced fields (andénes) from pre-Columbian times can be seen from afar.

On the  island  you can  explore sacred places and sights tracing back to the pre-Incan cultures of Pukara and Lupaka and the times of the Inca.

Nowadays these sites are still used in ceremonies that survived almost 500 years of colonial rule.

Until    the   1950's  the  island   belonged to hacendados. Finally, after  several rebellions, the people of   Amantaní .  succeeded   in   expelling  the  landlords  and      acquired the land for themselves.

Today around 4000 people live on the island. Most of them are indigenous people who speak their native tongue Quechua and Spanish. Like their ancestors did, they live in houses made of loam-bricks (most of them without electrical power) and work with breeding of sheep and agriculture.

In  countless andénes they grow potatoes, oca, barley and quinoa,  the famous "grain of the Incas".