Ojo del Inca (Tarapaya)

Ojo del Inca at Tarapaya, near Potosí, Bolivia, is one of the most visually dramatic thermal sites in South America — a perfectly circular volcanic crater lake approximately 30 metres in diameter, filled with naturally warm bicarbonate water at around 30°C, ringed by steep volcanic walls at an altitude of 3,500 metres. Incan tradition holds that the crater served as a royal bath for Incan rulers visiting the silver-rich mountains of Potosí, lending the site a mythological prestige that continues to draw visitors. The experience of floating in the warm crater waters while surveying the dramatic altiplano landscape around Potosí is without parallel in South American thermal bathing.