Chamarel - The seven coloured earth

After spending yesterday at the beach, Susan and I decided to give our pale English skin a break from the sun and sea, by going up into the Black River Gorges National Park to visit the village of Chamarel. I only recently started driving again after a 15 year break, so was a little apprehensive about the long and winding road ahead, but I read online that no buses go to Chamarel so that wasn't an option, and people are always saying that the driver is the least likely to be carsick, so I decided to go for it. Everything was going smoothly until we arrived at a sign for traffic lights ahead, suggesting the road may be too narrow for cars to pass each other. The road was undergoing some kind of work and there were plastic barriers all up one side, but no traffic lights. Imagine my surprise and horror when a bus suddenly appeared in front of me! (Who said no buses go to Chamarel?!) The minibus directly in front of us started reversing back down the road and I had no choice but to do the same thing, until we reached a place where the bus could pass. Twenty minutes later, someone asked me to take a photo of them using their smartphone and my hands were STILL shaking!

Chamarel is only a small village, but has several attractions, including a rum factory, coffee plantations, the highest waterfalls on the island, and the famous seven coloured earth. We paid our small entrance fee and headed up a bumpy track towards the waterfall. The falls, fed by the St Denis and Viande Salée rivers, are almost 100m high and at their strongest between December and April, during the rainy summer cyclone season. Even in September, they are good for a quick drink though.

Driving on a bit further, we arrived at the seven coloured earth. This is a unique, natural phenomenon, discovered in the 1960s during a period of land clearing. There is a useful sign explaining that the dune was formed after volcanic rock, from approximately 1.7 million years ago, decomposed in the hot, humid climate, leaving gullied clay with high levels of iron and aluminium oxides. The iron is responsible for the red and brown tones, whereas the blue and purple shades are from the aluminium. The two elements repel each other so appear to form stripes in the dune. Apparently if you filled a bottle with the seven coloured sand, it would eventually separate out into distinct layers of colour. The dunes are fenced off, otherwise I, and every other visitor, would have wanted to try this! The leaching of nutrients from the earth has meant that no plants ever grow there, and interestingly, the dunes never appear to suffer from erosion, despite the heavy rains which fall on Mauritius every year. Without further ado, here are some photos.

Many Mauritian souvenir shops sell test tubes or small bottles filled with what they claim to be sand from Chamarel. Anybody who's actually been to Chamarel will realise it's a scam, as the test tubes are filled with ordinary beach type sand which bears no resemblance whatsoever to this!