Just when you thought that Mauritius couldn’t get any more instagrammable, you stumble across this gem: Chamarel’s seven coloured earths. Phones will be whipped out faster than you can get into your best candid pose and data roaming may just have to be turned on to get it straight onto the feed, because this natural phenomenon has quite the like factor.
Hidden amongst the island’s typical lush vegetation, a strange stripped-back soil – rippled by the rain – bares its psychedelic spectrum for all to see. With its undulating rolls and striking pink hues, the scene is lunar-like in its natural eccentricity. And it’s for this otherworldly quality that the seven coloured earths have remained one of the island’s top tourist attractions since the 1960s.
The science is somewhat baffling, but it is thought that the distinct swaths of red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow have been formed by rare volcanic activity bringing a number of elements together that naturally vary in colour.
The hows and whys aside, these uniquely formed dunes are just one example of how nature’s astounding beauty continues to surprise. They’re not a sight to miss, that’s for sure.