🇧🇴 Bolivia · Altiplano and the Andes
The Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa is one of those places that seem to belong to another planet. In the far southwest of Bolivia, where the altiplano turns into a high-altitude desert above 4,000 meters, a landscape unfolds of lagoons dyed red, green and white, steaming geysers, hot springs venting into the cold of the morning, perfect volcanoes and rocks sculpted by the wind. It is the crowning finish of the famous Salar de Uyuni tour, and for many travelers the most striking moment of their whole time in Bolivia.
Within its more than 700,000 hectares live some of the country's most photographed icons: Laguna Colorada, red from the microalgae and home to thousands of flamingos; the geysers and fumaroles of Sol de Mañana; the Polques hot springs, where you bathe at almost 5,000 meters; Laguna Verde at the foot of the Licancabur volcano; and the solitary Árbol de Piedra out in the Siloli desert. It is also a key refuge for Andean wildlife: flamingos of three species, vicuñas, viscachas and the elusive Andean cat.
This guide gathers the practical side of visiting the REA with common sense: how and from where you get there (almost always inside the salt flat tour from Uyuni or Tupiza), what to see, how to deal with the altitude and the extreme cold, where you sleep and what to keep in mind so you can enjoy this high desert without nasty surprises. It is a demanding trip because of the conditions, but the visual payoff has no comparison.
The Sud Lípez region, where the reserve now stands, was crossed from pre-Hispanic times by camelid-herding peoples and by llama caravans that connected the altiplano with the oases of the Atacama desert and the Pacific coast. Much later, the area became tied to sulfur and borax mining and to the llama and vicuña herding of the local Quechua and Aymara communities. The Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa was created by decree in 1973, initially to protect flamingo and vicuña populations, and later expanded to its current roughly 714,000 hectares. It bears the name of Eduardo Avaroa, the Bolivian hero killed at the battle of Topáter (1879) during the War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost its access to the sea to Chile; the reserve's proximity to that border gives it a particular symbolic weight. Today it is the most visited reserve in Bolivia and a pillar of tourism in the southwest, managed by SERNAP (the national protected areas service) together with local communities. The full history of the region and its landscapes is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The department of silver and of the salt flats: home of the Cerro Rico that financed the Spanish Empire and of the Casa de la Moneda, of the Salar de Uyuni —the largest salt desert in the world and one of the great lithium reserves— and of the colored lagoons of the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve, on the highest and most desolate altiplano in the country, cradle of the hero Eduardo Avaroa.
Read the history of Potosí →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the reserve existed, the southwestern corner of the Bolivian altiplano —the Sud Lípez region, in what is now the department of Potosí— was already inhabited and travelled. It is one of the highest, coldest and most arid areas on the continent, a high-altitude desert above 4,000 meters where, even so, Andean communities learned to live from pre-Hispanic times. Aymara- and Quechua-speaking peoples, and before them the Lípez lordships, developed an economy based on herding camelids (llamas and alpacas) and on making use of wild vicuñas.
This region was not an isolated place but a junction of roads. Llama caravans connected the altiplano with the oases of the Atacama desert and with the Pacific coast, trading altiplano products (camelid meat and wool, salt, minerals) for goods from the valleys and the coast (maize, dried fish, cotton). The salt lagoons, the bofedales (high-altitude wetlands where animals graze) and the passes between volcanoes were part of routes known and memorized over generations.
That deep knowledge of the territory —where there is water, where to graze, how to cross the desert— is the foundation on which, centuries later, tourism in the area would be built. Many of the guides and drivers who travel the reserve today are descended from those herding and caravanning communities of the southern altiplano.
The southern altiplano of Bolivia is a land of extreme resources. Beneath its apparent emptiness, the ground holds minerals that at different times drew economic activity: sulfur on the flanks of the volcanoes, borax and other salts at the edges of the lagoons, and further north the salt of the Salar de Uyuni itself. The region saw sulfur and borax mining ventures, with remote camps and harsh working conditions, which left traces in the form of old installations and tracks.
But the most constant and deep-rooted activity was always high-altitude herding: raising llamas for meat, transport and wool, and making use of the vicuña, the wild camelid with the finest and most valuable fiber in the world. The vicuña was historically hunted for its wool, which led to a sharp drop in its populations; its protection would be, precisely, one of the reasons that drove the creation of the reserve.
To that combination of extreme mining, herding and caravanning was added, in the 20th century, a geopolitical dimension: this is a triple border area (Bolivia, Chile and, nearby, Argentina), marked by the loss of Bolivia's coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific. The desolate frontier landscape of the southern altiplano thus also carries a national memory.
The Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa was created by decree in 1973, with the initial aim of protecting the populations of high Andean flamingos and of vicuñas, threatened by hunting and by pressure on their habitat. Over time the protected area was expanded until it reached a surface close to 714,000 hectares, taking in the colored lagoons, the geysers, the high-altitude deserts and the volcanoes that are today its greatest draw.
The reserve's name is a tribute to Eduardo Avaroa (or Abaroa), one of the great heroes of Bolivian history. Avaroa died at the battle of Topáter on 23 March 1879, during the War of the Pacific, the conflict in which Bolivia lost its sovereign access to the sea to Chile (what is now northern Chile). The phrase tradition attributes to him —his refusal to surrender to the enemy— is considered a symbol of Bolivian resistance. The fact that the country's most visited reserve, sitting right on the border with Chile, carries his name gives it a symbolic weight that goes beyond the natural.
The reserve is managed by SERNAP (Bolivia's national protected areas service), which administers it together with local communities. The REA is also part of a network of wetlands of international importance for their role in conserving high Andean flamingos.
The reserve is a natural laboratory of volcanic geology. It sits on the Western Cordillera of the Andes, a belt of intense volcanic activity that marks the boundary between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, where volcanoes rise such as Licancabur (5,916 m), the perfect cone that watches over Laguna Verde, and many others topping 5,000 and 6,000 meters. That volcanic activity explains a good part of the most striking landscapes here.
Geothermal fields such as Sol de Mañana —with its pools of boiling mud, fumaroles and columns of steam at almost 5,000 meters— are the surface expression of the heat underground. The hot springs, like those at Polques, come up warm thanks to that same geothermal heat. And the colors of the lagoons also have a chemical and biological explanation: the red of Laguna Colorada comes from microalgae pigments and sediments; the emerald green of Laguna Verde, from the high concentration of dissolved minerals such as arsenic, magnesium and carbonates; the white edges, from borax and other salts.
On top of that extreme geology comes one of the severest climates on the inhabited planet: air thinned by the altitude, near-absolute dryness, extremely intense solar radiation by day and temperatures that plunge far below zero at night. It is that combination of factors —volcanoes, geothermal activity, water chemistry and extreme climate— that has sculpted one of the most singular landscapes in South America.
If one image defines the reserve, it is flamingos on colored water. The REA is one of the most important places on the continent for the conservation of high Andean flamingos, and it hosts the three species that live in the Andes: the Andean flamingo (the rarest and most threatened), James's flamingo or parina chica (rediscovered in the 20th century when it was believed extinct) and the Chilean flamingo. Laguna Colorada, in particular, is a key feeding and breeding site.
But the reserve protects far more than flamingos. Across its deserts and bofedales move vicuñas (the wild camelid whose protection drove the creation of the area), viscachas, Andean rheas (suri), Andean foxes and the elusive Andean cat, one of the most threatened and hardest-to-see felines in the world. That diversity of high-altitude wildlife is what gives the reserve its name and its reason for being: «Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina», the Andean Wildlife National Reserve.
Conserving this ecosystem faces challenges: pressure from tourism (which, well managed, funds its protection, but badly managed can damage the lagoons and disturb the wildlife), resource extraction projects (geothermal energy, mining, lithium in the salt flat region) and climate change, which affects the delicate balance of high-altitude wetlands. That is why the REA is both an extraordinary tourist destination and a territory that needs to be visited with respect and care.
In recent decades, the Reserva Eduardo Avaroa has gone from being a remote border corner to becoming the most visited protected area in Bolivia and one of the country's great tourist icons. The reason is its place in the famous four-wheel-drive tour circuit that sets out from the Salar de Uyuni: thousands of travelers from all over the world each year cover the three-day stretch that links the largest salt flat on the planet with the colored lagoons and geysers of the southern altiplano.
That tourism has brought income and opportunities to the communities of Sud Lípez —many of the drivers, guides and hostel owners are from the area— and has given economic value to conserving the landscape. But it also raises challenges: the pressure of vehicles and visitors on fragile ecosystems, waste management, the quality and safety of services, and the need to share the benefits fairly.
To those tourism challenges are added pressures on the region's resources: the nearby lithium extraction at the Salar de Uyuni, geothermal and mining projects, and the effects of climate change on the lagoons and bofedales. The future of the reserve will depend on balancing the conservation of one of the most extraordinary landscapes in South America with the development of the communities that live in it and the enormous flow of visitors it attracts. For the traveler, that translates into a simple rule: travel it with respect, follow the guides' instructions and leave as little trace as possible.