On a small promontory on the southern shore of Titicaca Lake, Chucuito, a small Aymara town, is one of the oldest in the Altiplano region. The town, capital of the province during colonial times, has a lovely main square and a colonial church: Nuestra Señora de La Asunción (built in 1601). Chucuito was also the primary Inca settlement in the region. Near another colonial church, Santo Domingo, lays a most curious construction dating to pre-Columbian times and the town's main attraction: Inca Uyo, which is composed of dozens of large, mushroom-shaped phallic stones, most a few feet high, which were apparently erected as part of fertility rituals. Some point up at the sun god, Inti, while others are inserted into the ground, directed at Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Local guides tell tales of the exact rituals during which virgins purportedly sat for hours atop the phalluses to increase fertility. The stones might predate the Incas, but some contend that they are faked or were made for other purposes totally unconnected with the fertility rituals. Spanish missionaries did everything in their power to destroy all symbols and structures they considered pagan, and it does seem odd that they would have constructed two churches nearby but left this temple intact.
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