Image via atlasobscura
Caño Cristales, a river in Columbia’s Sierra de la Macarena, is as moody as it is beautiful. Come a bit too early in the dry season, and you’ll just find a parched river bed. Come a bit too late in the wet season, and everything will be flooded and more inaccessible than unusual. But come just at the right time, in the first few days of the wet season, and you’ll witness a magnificent spectacle of rainbow colors in a river that’s nicknamed the “most beautiful river in the world”.
Like a painter’s palette:
Image via tejiendoelmundo
Pools of yellow:
Image via lamacarena
Caño Cristales’ waters flow from the plateau south of the Sierranía de la Macarena, a national park and mountain range that is a sanctuary for many animal and plant species. The rugged terrain features many unexplored caves and archeological sites with pictrograms and petroglyphs dating back to pre-Columbian times. The 100 km long and 20 m wide river is the national park’s central feature.
Waterfalls in a sea of pink:
Image via wayfaring
The river bed and river rocks are covered with green and brown mosses and algae during most of the year. At the onset of the wet season in early October and early April, however, they receive enough moisture and sunlight to unfold a most spectacular array of colors ranging from deep red, yellow and pink to blue, green and black.
Have you ever seen orange waters before?
Image via atlasobscura
A sea of orange with waterfalls:
Image via portaltaringa
As the wet season progresses, the water levels become deeper and the river currents faster, obscuring the bottom of the river and therefore not letting the much needed sunlight through for the river’s many mosses and algae.
Braving the Caño Cristales:
Image via colombia.travel
The time window for catching this incredible display of colors is rather narrow and the road difficult – from the nearby town of La Macarena, one can either brave open terrain on horseback or be flown in as part of a tour. Still, every year quite a number of adventurous Columbian and international tourists brave the trek for an experience of a lifetime. Caño Cristales is not called the “river that ran away to paradise” and “most beautiful river in the world” for nothing.
Back to crystal clear at the end of the season: 
Image: Managementboy
