Lake or spelling test?

Lake or spelling test?

© Alfredo Santamaria/500px/Getty Images

More than 400 lakes lurk in the rugged folds of Bolivia's stark Andean topography, and if their sheer numbers weren't tough enough to keep track of, their many names are liable to bamboozle the unprepared traveler. This lake's name is variously written as Huayna Khota, Chojña Qota, Ch'uxña Quta, and a variety of spellings in between. For place names in Bolivia, this is a common phenomenon: Officially styled as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the nation constitutionally enshrines dozens of Indigenous tongues and dialects as languages of the law.

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