Laguna Verde — the Most Beautiful Place in Bolivia

Lagu­na Verde (Poto­si Lake) is a min­er­al salt lake locat­ed in the south­west­ern part of Bolivia, close to the bor­der with Chile. It is locat­ed on the pic­turesque Alti­plano plateau, which is also called the Boli­vian Plateau. This amaz­ing lake got its beau­ti­ful name Lagu­na Verde, which can be trans­lat­ed from Span­ish as “green lake” because of the emer­ald col­or of the water.

One of the most beau­ti­ful places in Bolivia is locat­ed at an alti­tude of about 4300 m above sea lev­el. The area of ​​the water sur­face is about 17 sq. km, its length is 5.2 km, width — about 4 km, max­i­mum depth — 8 m. Lagu­na Verde is con­nect­ed with the neigh­bor­ing lake Lagu­na Blan­ca (“White Lake”) in a nar­row strait.

The lake is locat­ed at the foot of the Lican­cabur vol­cano, with a height of 6200 meters and an almost per­fect cone. Such an inter­est­ing neigh­bor­hood played a deci­sive role in the fate of Lagu­na Verde. Min­er­als and met­als (mag­ne­sium, car­bon­ate, cal­ci­um, arsenic, and pre­dom­i­nant­ly cop­per, pen­e­trate into the lake from the bow­els of the earth and give the water this won­der­ful col­or. Every­one knows about the famous Uyu­ni Salt Flats in Bolivia, and Lagu­na Verde remains a much less pop­u­lar place.

In addi­tion, Lagu­na Verde is also famous for its hot springs, which reach tem­per­a­tures of up to 42 degrees Cel­sius. The wall of hot springs is framed by desert land­scapes, and their brown-red tones favor­ably empha­size the incred­i­ble hue of the unique lake. It is worth not­ing an inter­est­ing fact. At the top of the vol­cano, you will find the ruins of Inca struc­tures. The fact that they have sur­vived to this day sug­gests that the vol­cano has not been active for the past 500 years.

Lagu­na Verde is locat­ed with­in the Eduar­do Avaroa Nature Reserve. The emer­ald green col­or of the lake, a large pop­u­la­tion of flamin­gos, as well as the pic­turesque land­scapes of the lake against the back­drop of the vol­cano attract many tourists. This is tru­ly a par­adise where you will find pri­va­cy from pry­ing eyes. Of course, here you will not find a sandy beach, but a hard vol­canic stone. How­ev­er, it does not spoil the over­all impres­sion, and the spec­ta­cle brings a lot of plea­sure. The best time to vis­it Lagu­na Verde is from April to Sep­tem­ber. Trav­el­ers need to take warm clothes due to the cold winds that pre­vail in this area.