Band-e Amir

Six blue lakes held back by dams the water built itself

Band-e Amir is a chain of six deep blue lakes about 2,900 metres up in the Hindu Kush, some 75 km northwest of Bamyan near the town of Yakawlang. White walls of travertine hold them in. Water carrying dissolved minerals seeped out of faults and fractures and left calcium carbonate behind, layer on layer, until the deposits became dams, and Band-e Amir is one of the few natural lakes in the world created by travertine systems. The six are Band-e Gholaman, the lake of the slaves; Band-e Qambar, the lake of Caliph Ali's slave; Band-e Haibat, the lake of awe and the biggest, with an average depth estimated at about 150 metres; Band-e Panir, the lake of cheese; Band-e Pudina, the lake of wild mint; and Band-e Zulfiqar, the lake of the sword of Ali. Local lore says Hazrat Ali, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, threw the dams into place. The Balkh River rises here.

The name means the Ruler's Dam. Efforts to protect the lakes began in the 1970s and stalled in the wars, and before the park was created there were plans to use the area for a hydrodam project. Abdullah Barat, a Hazara activist from the Shaidan Valley, campaigned for protection instead, and in 2009 Band-e Amir became Afghanistan's first national park. Before that it suffered from cutting for firewood, overgrazing and overhunting, pollution and fishing with hand grenades, and snow leopards were hunted out of the area; ibex, urials, wolves and foxes remain. Park rangers now monitor it, and the WCS is the only non-government organization with an office in the park.

It is a summer place. Winter temperatures fall as low as −20 °C and the lakes freeze over. In season Afghan families come out for picnics, there are boats and swan-shaped pedalos for hire, and more than 100,000 local and foreign visitors came in 2023. Check your government's travel advice for Afghanistan before considering a trip.