As we told you the other day when we showed you the natural pool of To Sua Ocean Trench , there are truly magical corners in the world. We have found one of them in Senegal, where Lake Retba is located, also known as the “pink lake”.
Located north of the Dakar region, in Cape Verde , it is a unique place in the world for its particular pink color, which has made it the subject of multiple scientific studies and photographic objectives. Do you want to know more about this magical Senegalese corner?
The scientific explanation
This curious lake, which covers an area of approximately 3 kilometers, acquires its pinkish hue due to its salinity and the Dunaliella algae that produce a red pigment to resist such a concentration of salt. When pigment and salt come into contact with sunlight, the water turns pink. This hue is especially visible in the dry season, since the algae that causes this color reaction in the water multiplies massively.
High salinity
As we have just mentioned, another of the peculiarities of this lake is its high salt content, even higher than that of the Dead Sea, which causes people to float easily. In addition, this characteristic feeds the inhabitants of the area, who dedicate themselves to scratching the bottom of this lake and transporting it in rudimentary boats to the coast, where they manage to extract this mineral from the water and then sell it.
Men and women protect themselves from corrosive salinity by slathering on shea butter, a kind of skin-protecting cream made from the shea tree that is popular with beauty lovers today.
