Acolla · PE

Laguna de Chocón

Laguna de Chocón is a high-Andean wetland on the southern edge of the Yanamarca Valley in Peru's Junín region, celebrated for the richest concentration of water birds in the Mantaro Valley. The lake's mirror-flat waters attract the iconic parihuana (Chilean flamingo)—the very bird whose white-and-red plumage inspired Peru's national flag—alongside herons, ducks, geese, and dozens of other species. Set in the Puna ecoregion with an oval shape roughly five square kilometres across and an average depth of under two metres, Chocón is a living landscape where totora reeds rise from a soft, muddy bottom and the Yanamarca stream feeds the basin year-round. A wooden viewpoint between the towns of Marco and Acolla gives visitors an elevated perch to take in the whole scene without disturbing the wildlife below.