Laguna Colorada

Interesting facts

James's flamingo, long feared extinct, was rediscovered nesting on a salt island in Laguna Colorada in the mid-1950s by an expedition led by ornithologist A. W. Johnson.

Although it spreads over roughly 10.7 by 9.6 kilometres, the lagoon's average depth is only about 35 centimetres.

The lagoon lies at about 4,278 metres above sea level, inside Bolivia's Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve.

It was listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance in 1990; in 2009 the Los Lípez site was enlarged from about 513 to more than 14,000 square kilometres.

Its waters, fed mainly by the Sulor River, are rich in sodium chloride, borates, sulfates and diatomite, with a pH that can swing from about 5.3 to 9.0.

The surrounding basin receives only around 75 millimetres of rain or snow a year, while night temperatures can drop to about −17 °C.

Depending on algae, sunlight and temperature, the water can shift from brownish and soft pink tones to a deep, almost blood red.

Andean foxes, vicuñas and the rare Andean mountain cat live in the arid country around the shore.

Laguna Colorada was among the candidates in the global New7Wonders of Nature vote, though it was eliminated before the final round.

Why it is worth it

Laguna Colorada is barely a lake in depth — under a meter across roughly 60 square kilometers — but it packs an unusual amount going on in that shallow water. The red color comes from the same broad phenomenon as Lake Hillier's pink or Lake Natron's crimson: salt-tolerant Dunaliella algae producing carotenoid pigments to survive intense high-altitude UV radiation and extreme salinity, here concentrated further by iron-rich sediment that pushes the tone toward rust-red rather than pink.

Scattered across that red water are white islands that look like salt but aren't — they're borax, sodium borate deposits left behind by ancient geothermal activity in the basin. It's the same mineral used industrially in detergents and glass manufacturing, occurring here as a natural landscape feature rather than something mined.

The lagoon's plankton is the reason roughly 65% of the world's Andean flamingo population chooses to breed here, alongside Chilean flamingos and the rarer James's flamingo — all three South American flamingo species in one place, an unusual concentration for an environment where nighttime temperatures regularly drop below −20°C. The birds and the algae they feed on form a tight loop: the extreme chemistry that makes the water red is the same chemistry sustaining the food source that makes this one of the continent's most important high-altitude breeding sites.

Good to know

Laguna Colorada is one stop on a broader high-Andean flamingo migratory circuit shared with lagoons across Chile and Argentina.

Best time to visit

Flamingo numbers and breeding activity peak roughly November–January (Southern Hemisphere summer), when the color is also typically most vivid.

Getting there

121 km from Calama. El Loa Airport (CJC) is about 120 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Laguna Colorada,, is a shallow, hypersaline lake in the remote southwestern region of the Altiplano, within the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve in Bolivia and located at an elevation of approximately 4,278 metres (14,000 ft) above sea level. In 1990, the lake was designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.

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