Lake Retba Looks Like a Giant Strawberry Milkshake
Lake Retba or Lac Rose lies north of the Cap Vert peninsula of
Senegal, north east of Dakar. Depending on the time of day, the lake
changes colour from a light purple to a deep scarlet pink. The unusual
colouring of the water is caused by harmless halophilic bacteria that
thrive in the lake’s high-salinity environment. The color is
particularly visible during the dry season.
"The strawberry
colour is produced by salt-loving organism Dunaliella salina. They
produce a red pigment that absorbs and uses the energy of sunlight to
create more energy, turning the water pink," said Michael Danson, an
expert in bacteria from Britain's Bath University.
Covering an
area of about 3 sq km, the lake is located about 35km north-east of
Senegal’s capital Dakar. Since the 1970s, local residents have been
mining Lake Retba for its salt, which they use mainly to preserve fish.
Waist-deep in water, the men scrape the bottom of the lake to harvest
this universally useful mineral which they collect in baskets in their
wooden canoes. The salt is then taken back to shore where it is
sectioned into small mounds. Dotted along the lake’s shore, these
pristine white hills of salt create an arresting contrast against the
pink of the lake. In order to protect their skin from the extreme
salinity of the water, the workers rub their skin with shea butter,
produced from shea nuts obtained from the Shea nut tree.
Lakes
like Retba and the Dead Sea, which have high salt, were once thought to
be incompatible with life. The salt content is very high, as much as
40%, which is almost one and a half times higher than in the Dead Sea -
three hundred and eighty grams per liter.
Lake Retba is well
known for having been the end point of the famed Dakar Rally, which has
since been relocated to South America.
