Located within Colombia’s Serranía de la Macarena national park, in the country’s Meta province, is one of the most unusual natural wonders on the planet: A multi-colored river called Caño Cristales, sometimes referred to as “River of Five Colors.”
Surrounded on all sides by lush green jungle, the river cuts through tiered rock formations. But this is no normal river: The river bed is blanketed in rare red, yellow, green, blue and black plant life that resembles algae or seaweed. In fact, these plants are called macarenia clavigera and are actually a type of riverweed – and they don’t bloom with such abundance anywhere else on earth.
According to CNN, Colombia is the only place in the world where this exact phenomenon takes place, because of its position at the convergence of the Colombian Amazon and Orinoco rivers – making it one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.
