Potosi Attractions

The Laguna Colorada is located in the Andean plateaus of Bolivia, just southwest of it. It is within Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve near the Chilean border. It is a 60-square kilometer shallow salt lake that has white borax islands that provide good contrast to all that red water. The shoreline is also bordered by white deposits composed of gypsum, sodium, borax and magnesium.

The lake is famous for its brilliant and unique coloration – bright red due to the algae that exists in abundance in its waters. Such phenomena also occur in other areas, such as in the Arctic islands in Canada. These lakes also have a pastel rainbow of colors, depending on the kind of algae that exists in the lake or lagoon.

Laguna Colorada's unique red hue has earned it a place as part of the Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance...

Salar de Uyuni Lake in southwest Bolivia covers a space of over 10,000 square kilometers and is the largest salt flat in the world. It is perched close to the crest of the Andes, over 3,500 meters high. At the Salar de Uyuni, what you see is a stretch of white, with remote purple hills (which are actually active volcanoes!) dotting the horizon. It is, by far, one of most exotic, even surreal, destinations in Bolivia. A view of this scene is very much like something from a dream.

Now, the fact that this vast tract is made up of salt (and not ice, snow or water) is fascinating. Salar de Uyuni originally was a huge saltwater lake or probably an inland sea, but mysteriously, the water vanished and only the salt remained. The result? Aside from the Uyuni Salt flats, there is also the Coipasa Salt Flat (which is smaller), as well as Lake Poopo and Lake Titicaca.

That is, around 10 billion tons of salt, twenty-five times more than the amount of salt in Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats...