Lac Rose: the pink lake that was green

Lac Rose sat on our route plan as one of the highlights of Senegal: the pink
lake from the postcards, just north of Dakar, water the colour of strawberry
milk. We drove up at the end of May and found a rather neglected shore,
a line of wooden boats, and water that was unmistakably green. Not pink at a
funny angle. Green, and not looking especially clean.

We decided the problem must be us. Maybe the colour lives further out, past
what you can see from the sand. So we got into the boats. A few minutes of
rowing settled it: the water does not change colour, no matter how far out
you go. We came back to shore, had dinner, and then drove a slow lap around
the lake anyway, hunting for the angle where the pink shows up. There wasn't
one. Not that year.

The explanation reached us later. Floods the year before had broken into
the lake and diluted the near-saturated salt water that feeds the algae
behind the colour – the pink had been gone for months before we arrived,
and nobody on our list of highlights had updated the entry. Reports since
say some of the colour has been creeping back in the dry season. On the
day we stood on its shore, there was none.

What the afternoon left us was the ring of souvenir markets around the lake
– we walked the stalls and bought a few local things, which felt like the
right way to leave something behind – and a rule we kept for the rest of the
trip: a highlights list ages faster than you think. Before you drive across
a country for a colour, look up a photo from last week, not the postcard.