Manaure Pink Salt Ponds

La Guajira is full of hidden treasures, one of them is the unusual landscape at Manaure salt beaches The pink Salt Ponds are located in Manaure, a municipality in the Colombian department of La Guajira, recognized mainly by the most important maritime salinas in the country.

These landscapes that, in other times, inspired Eduardo Zalamea Borda to write «Four Years on Board of Myself» and it served as the background for the play «Sand Moon(Luna de Arena)» by Arturo Camacho Ramírez at the 1930’s and 1940’s decades respectively, still have that stateliness, that took writers and poets to a dream journey in the past, and nowadays attracts adventurous tourists willing to travel La Guajira to gaze at its landscapes.

But, why is the water pink? Nature is wise and its cycles are capable of astonish more than any process devised and practiced by the human being. High levels of salinity make life impossible for beings like little vertebrates. The story is not the same for algae, little crustaceans and bacteria, who are capable of stand salinity and live. When these organisms gather to reproduce they «dye» the water where they are of pink: A great phenomenon!

To reach Manaure from Riohacha, it takes one hour and forty minutes approximately, if the trip is made by car. Salty water turns pink once or twice per year, at the same time salt extraction begins. If the trip is carried out at the right season, it will be possible to see a scene that would look like taken from another planet: little sand islands, resembling midget plateaus and mounts, separated from each other by pink waters.