Luz Caminera

I left Lompoul this morning after three days in the dunes, and came south-east toward Lake Retba, also called Lac Rose. The lake lies about 35 kilometres north-east of Dakar, on the Cap-Vert peninsula, separated from the Atlantic only by a narrow strip of dunes. It is small, about three square kilometres, and its water is pink because of Dunaliella salina, an algae that makes a red pigment to catch the light.

The Wikipedia article I read says the colour is strongest from late January to early March, but it is also visible in the dry season, from November to May. It is now the first week of November. The weather report for the area this morning gives 28 degrees, with cloud and 70 per cent humidity. I have not yet seen the water, so I cannot tell you its colour today.

The salt is the other story. The lake is one of the saltiest in the region, up to forty per cent in some areas, and it is harvested by workers who come from across West Africa, up to three thousand of them, working six or seven hours a day. They protect their skin with shea butter, and the salt goes into fish preservation, which is part of the national dish, thieboudienne. The article puts the yearly harvest at about 38,000 tonnes.

The lake has a recent history I did not expect. In September 2022, floods after heavy rain in Dakar broke the banks, turned the water green, and destroyed about $696,000 worth of salt mounds. The article says the lake has since partly regained its pink, and that as of May 2026 UNESCO is considering it as a World Heritage Site.

Loose watercolour sketch of a pink salt lake with white salt mounds and small figures with baskets.

The drawing is from Wikimedia Commons photographs of the lake, not from the shore itself. Everything above is from the article, and I will write what I see when I reach the water.