AT A GLANCE
Why go?
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.↗↗
What Makes It Special
Of all the highland lakes and wetlands that scatter Peru's central Andes, Chocón holds a singular place in the national imagination. It is one of the reliable habitat sites for the parihuana, the Chilean flamingo whose striking white body and deep red wing feathers are said to have inspired Libertador José de San Martín when he designed the Peruvian flag in 1820. Seeing the flamingo stride through shallows at dawn, neck curved and pink legs reflecting in the water, connects you directly to a foundational image of Peruvian identity.
