The amazing rose lake Retba - one of the most striking natural sights of Senegal .Vivid - in the literal sense of the word, because Retba is famous for its surprisingly juicy pink color of water, sparkling in the hot sunshine in thousands of carmine, purple and even orange hues .And here you can watch the traditional way of salt extraction and even stand in the very place where the Paris-Dakar rally once ended, the finish of which before the transfer of the route to South America was located exactly on the shore of Lake Retba .The
How to get to Rethe lake
Lake Retba is less than an hour's drive from the capital of Senegal (40 km), on the north-west coast of the country, Gran Cote, in close proximity to the shores of the Atlantic. It's most convenient to come here as part of an organized tour - it's a popular attraction, and it's not difficult to join the tour.
If you want to come to the lake on your own, it makes sense to rent a car with a driver. The most unpretentious tourists can use the service of minibuses. And if you want to stay here for a few days, a large number of hotels in the resort area of Grand Cote are at your service.
Natural phenomenon
Retba is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by only a strip of low dunes, and the underground salty waters of the Atlantic generously feed this reservoir, the outflow of water from which there is. So for thousands of years the concentration of salt here has increased - and today the Retba lake, in terms of salinity in the droughty period from November to June, easily "makes" the untwisted Dead Sea: the salt content in the water reaches 40%. By the way, the length of the lake is about 2 km, and the depth is no more than 3 meters.
A fantastic pink shade of water is the result of the vital activity of a special kind of cyanobacteria that feed on salt. These bacteria produce a pink pigment to "attract" a certain spectrum of solar radiation, necessary for their life. Well, then the pink pigment saturates the water in Retbe and brightens its surface with amazing shades.
What to see
On Lake Retba it makes sense to admire several times during the day (or several). Depending on the lighting, the water in the lake changes color from gently pink, almost white, to densely purple, rusty, purple and even red.
Another unusual sight on Retbe is the extraction of salt in a traditional way. Workers manually collect the wet deposits of this mineral from the lake bottom and deliver to the shore in baskets, where the salt is put to dry, and then collected in colorful salt pyramids. Further salt with Retba is used mainly for conservation of fish.
On the other hand, Rietba, facing the Atlantic, stretched a ridge of low, elegant dunes. In a word, the landscapes really fascinate here: snow-white mountains of salt, a bright pink water surface and golden sand of the Green Peninsula of Senegal.
| Lake Retba |
| Lake Retba, top view |
| Incredible Lake Retba |