Nature’s paint brush creates some amazing things – turning leaves in the Fall, beautiful flowers in the Spring or colorful fish.
In Columbia, Mother Nature creates a river that changes colors.
Called the River of Five Colors, Cano Cristales River runs nearly 100 kilometers through the northern portion of the country called the “Sierra de la Macarena” and becomes a liquid palette during a short period in the Spring. Ignore the ear worm that just popped into your mind due to the mention of Macarena and check out the colors.
Due to algae blooms, the water flows with colors ranging from magenta to orange to red to yellow to blue. During the rest of the year, the algae is a not-so-striking brown and green.
Travel to the region is difficult and tourism is limited to the area to protect it from human devastation.
Thankfully those who have traveled to the area shared their incredible photos with the rest of the world who can’t make the trek.
Atlas Obscura has more of those striking photos of the river. They’re much more soothing images than the photos of the dust storm that swept across Australia or the satellite images of the devastation created by the tsunami that ruined areas of Japan.
