Qualla: Lake Iguaque

Lake Iguaque: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Grundkarte Milenioscuro, Relief Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before there were people, there was a lake. That is what the Muisca believed about Iguaque, a body of still water nested in the paramo above 3,600 meters in Colombia's Eastern Andes. From its surface, according to their origin story, the goddess Bachue rose one day carrying a boy in her arms. When the child grew, she married him, and their children populated the Earth. When their work was done, Bachue and her husband returned to the lake in the form of snakes, disappearing beneath the water that had given them life. The lake has been sacred ever since.

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Image: Grundkarte Milenioscuro, Relief Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Iguaque: Where the Sky Meets the Water

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ivan Tunja, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lake Iguaque sits within the Santuario de Fauna y Flora Iguaque, a protected area declared a Flora and Fauna Sanctuary in 1977. The sanctuary spans elevations between 2,400 and 3,800 meters, encompassing four distinct ecosystems: paramo and subparamo, paramo wetlands, high Andean...

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Image: Ivan Tunja | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Iguaque: The Mother of Humanity

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jilgam569, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bachue's name in the Chibcha language means "the bare-breasted one," and she holds a place in Muisca cosmology that few deities in the Americas can match: she is the origin of the species. The Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish conquest, organiz...

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Image: Jilgam569 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Iguaque: The Trail to Bachue's Waters

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Novoaparra, CC BY-SA 3.0. Reaching the lake requires effort that feels appropriate for a pilgrimage. The Bachue trail runs 4.7 kilometers from the Carrizal administrative center to the lake shore, a route that takes roughly six hours round trip and passes through three of the sanctuary's four ecosystems. ...

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Image: Novoaparra | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Iguaque: Life at the Margins

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefanrevollo, CC BY-SA 4.0. The paramo is one of the most biodiverse yet least understood ecosystems on Earth, and Iguaque's sanctuary harbors species found nowhere else. In 2006, scientists described a new species of sweat bee, Neocorynura muiscae, discovered near the lake and named after the Muisca people...

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Image: Stefanrevollo | CC BY-SA 4.0