“We don’t know what we will do from now until December because the water will keep getting lower,” said 63-year-old Nazario Charca, who lives on the lake and makes a living ferrying tourists around its waters. Visitors have long been attracted to the blue waters and open skies of South America’s largest lake, which straddles more than 3,200 square miles across the border of Peru and Bolivia.
“We are extremely worried most of all because the water level is falling a lot at the moment,” said Jullian Huattamarca, 36, who sells locally made textiles to visitors to the island of Taquile. “We want the tourists to come back, particularly foreign tourists,” he said. The Puno region, which envelops the entirety of the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, has long been known as an underdeveloped and marginalized region of the country.