MOST STRIKING LAGOON IN SOUTH WEST BOLIVIA
In our attempt to drive our camper from San Pedro de Atacama to Laguna Colorada, we learned the hard way that the road was too bad to make it to the red lake. Two months after this insane adventure, we arrived at this colourful lagoon on the second day of our three-day tour from Uyuni.
Though South West Bolivia is full with very different stunning sites and many beautiful lagoons, we found Laguna Colorada the most incredible lake. As we were so keen to see this natural wonder, we had been negotiating with our tour guide Gerardo for two days to try to get extra time at this lagoon.
BEST TIME TO VISIT
As the colours of the lagoon are best appreciated in the late afternoon, we arrived around 16:30 (later than planned), but to our disappointment we only got 20 minutes here, despite our early requests. Well, rules are there to be broken. We simply could not obey this time frame and admired this lake full of flamingos and took photos for over 40 minutes. The flamingos are most abundant during the summer months and migrate to warmer weather when the Altiplano temperatures drop.
Gerardo was a little annoyed that we were late, as we had to make it to a hostel in time to ask if they had place for the five of us (!). We were a little more annoyed, that we had to leave this beautiful lagoon in order to find accommodation on an organised tour!
For sure we were missing our camper, our flexibility and freedom, our own good management and good facilities. Luckily, the hostel had space, so we could wait in their freezing dining room with fire place that wasn’t lit (but we lit it later), for a few hours until dinner arrived. We would have loved to have spent this time at the lagoon.
GET LUCKY WITH THE COLOURS
However, we were already very happy to have experienced this beauty at its best; we were lucky that the lagoon was really colourful at the time of our visit. As a few months before, we had asked several tourists who went there in June and none of them saw the red colour and some of them faced heavy sand storms and could hardly see the lake. It seems you have to be very lucky with the season and weather conditions to see it as on the pictures.
Laguna Roja in northern Chile, on the other hand, is always red, locals said. In our opinion, Laguna Roja is even more outstanding and is definitely something not to miss either!
