This body of water's Providencia Island once served as an independent leper colony.  
This body of water's Providencia Island once served as an independent leper colony.  Several efforts to deepen it have led to unrest among its indigenous Wayu? and Paraujano peoples.  The dense marshes of its southwest feature lagoons like the Sinamaica and the Escalante, which receive half the drainage of the nearby Perija Mountains, including rivers like the Chama and the Santa Ana.  In the north, its wide outlet is spanned by the Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, which links the Cabimas region on its eastern shore with its namesake city, the capital of the western state of Zulia.  Meaning "place of the serpents," FTP, name this lake that receives its fresh water from the Catatumbo River, which is connected to the Caribbean Sea via the Gulf of Venezuela and which is the largest lake in South America.
This body of water's Providencia Island once served as an independent leper colony.  
Lake Maracaibo