Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is South America's largest lake and the world's highest navigable lake. It is located at the northern end of the endorheic Altiplano basin in the Andes mountains on the border between Bolivia and Peru. Lake Titicaca, sacred in the Incan religion, is a freshwater lake — it would have to be 3 or 4 times more saline to be classified as a saline lake.

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Quotes

The blue of Titicaca is peculiar, not deep and dark as that of the tropical ocean, nor opaque like the blue of Lake Leman, nor like that warm purple of the Aegean which Homer compares to dark red wine, but a clear, cold, crystalline blue, even as is that of the cold skye vaulted over it. Even in the blazing sunlight it had that sort of chilly glitter one sees in the crevasses of a glacier; and the wavelets sparkled like diamonds.
- James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, as quoted by H. A. L. Fisher, in: James Bryce (Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.). vol. 2. London: Macmillan & Company, Ltd. 1927. p. 52. (text at archive.org)

The lake itself functions almost as a closed system; its only outflow river under the present hydrological situation accounts for less than 5 % of the total water losses. The lake water is subject to strong evaporation, has a retention time of the order of 63 years and has a total dissolved salt content of close to one gram per liter, which distinguishes it from the much fresher waters of the majority of the Andean mountain lakes.
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In addition to its unusual limnological features, it is, according to Indian mythology, one of the birthplaces of mankind. The sun, the moon and the stars were born within its bounds according to the wishes of Viracocha, creator of the world. Here, after the Great Flood that destroyed the world, mankind took its first steps. The lake was a sacred site for the Incas, who saw it as the end of the earth and a point of fusion where the two concepts of time and space came to be expressed.
- Claude Dejoux & André Iltis, "Introduction". Lake Titicaca: A Synthesis of Limnological Knowledge. Volume 68 of Monographiae Biologicae. Springer Science & Business Media. 2012. pp. xv–xx. ISBN 9789401124065. (quote from pp. xv–xvi; 576 pages; 1st edition, 1992; edited by Claude Dejoux & André Iltis, with 50 other contributors)

Lake Titicaca is one of the world’s great sights. A vast inland sea improbably located in the sky. If it were in Europe, its surface would be above all the highest peaks in Switzerland and Austria, and its area would measure more than twice the size of all their lakes combined. ...
... If Titicaca was never a serious contender as the source of the Amazon (it’s in the mountains to the north), it is the cultural heart for Indigenous people.
- Kevin Rushby, (24 June 2024) "The lost temples of Lake Titicaca: exploring the less developed Bolivian shore. On the second leg of his Amazon adventure, our writer looks at how tourism is supporting locals in an area of remote beauty and rich cultural heritage". The Guardian.