Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe

The billionaires can keep their space race. There are more than enough fascinating and other-worldly sights to appreciate right here on earth, no space suit necessary.

By Jessica Keller

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Las Salinas de Torrevieja in Spain – Home to tourist hotspots like Benidorm, Alicante and Altea, most travellers head for Spain’s Costa Blanca in search of white sands, blue skies and perhaps some red sangria (make that lots of sangria), but for those who can tear themselves away from the cocktails and coastline, something remarkable awaits: the pepto-pink hues of an unusual salt lake. This lagoon, mined for its sea salt but also protected as a habitat for birds and other wildlife, gets its peculiar colour primarily from microscopic algae. Shrimp in the lake feast on the algae and are then consumed by flamingos who feed here during breeding season, passing the pretty pink hues on to the flamingos’ plumage. For the most vibrant tones, visit the lake on a calm, sunny day – and whatever you do, don’t go into the water (it’s strictly forbidden).

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Caño Cristales In Colombia – Aquatic plants are also responsible for the spectacular display that can be observed in this river of the Serranía de la Macarena National Park in south-central Colombia. Dubbed the ’Liquid Rainbow’, the waters are home to the riverweed Macarenia clavigera, which assumes a red or pink tone in the period between the rainy and dry seasons. Combined with the black rocks, green algae, yellow sands and crystalline waters, the result is a riot of colour that can usually be witnessed from late July to November, weather conditions permitting. [Photo: Mario Carvajal/Wikimedia Commons]

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Deadvlei In Namibia – We’re getting strong Dalí vibes here. Dreamlike yet unsettling, this “dead marsh” in the Namib desert is a white clay pan surrounded by striking red sand dunes and dotted with the scorched corpses of camel thorn trees. The pan was once nourished by the Tsauchab River, but changing climate and the encroachment of the dunes cut it off from the life-giving waters, leaving the trees – thought to be 900 years old – to die and char in the sun, the desert air too dry for them to decompose. The mysterious landscape has featured in Tarsem Singh surrealist films The Fall and The Cell, and draws intrepid travellers to its haunting reaches every year. Creepy? Yes. Surreally beautiful? Also yes.

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Tsingy de Bemaraha In Madagascar – If weird is what you’re after, Madagascar has it in spades. Lemurs, chameleons, giant baobab trees: earth’s fourth largest island hardly even seems to be of this planet. Add to the list the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park near the country’s western coast, featuring an expanse of needle-like limestone formations rising up to 100 metres and forming a veritable forest of spikes towering over a deep river gorge, as well as mangrove forests that offer shelter for wild birds and lemurs. Tsingy is remote, so you’ll need to plan at least a day to get there, but once arrived, you can enjoy trekking among the karst towers, as well as river boating, fishing and spotting wildlife that can be found nowhere else on earth. [Credit: Ralph Kränzlein via Flickr]

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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The Ochre Quarries Of Roussillon – Purple is the hue most often associated with France’s idyllic Provence region, famous for its endless fields of lavender. But in the Luberon massif, about 1.5 hours north of Aix-en Provence, shades of ochre – ranging from rust to blush and even golden-yellow – are the order of the day. The earth here is rich in ochre deposits, which were mined starting in the 18th century, and used to create natural, non-toxic dyes as well as stucco for Provençal homes. Have a wander through the old ochre quarries, the impossibly red earth glowing under the sun – and be sure to visit Roussillon, a charming village that adds a vivid splash of colour to the archetype of the pretty Provençal town.

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Valley Of The Moon In Brazil – Yes, we’re well aware that the Chilean Atacama also has an alluring Valley of the Moon (with world-class stargazing to boot), but Brazil’s answer to the lunar landscape looks arguably more authentic – and there’s a waterfall to boot. The ‘Vale da Lua’ has been sculpted by the gushing waters of the Rio São Miguel over millions of years, forming deep craters and smooth outcrops in the grey-black rock. Located just outside of the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park about 3 hours north of Brasília, you can explore the alien rock formations and cool off in the jade-green pools and cascades, but beware of visiting in the rainy season, as the area is prone to flash floods. [Photo: Adelano Lázaro/Wikimedia Commons]

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Hani Rice Terraces In China – A singularity on our list, this unbelievable landscape found in the Yunnan Province of southern China is no naturally occurring phenomenon – it’s the product of human ingenuity that can be traced back more than 1,000 years. The Hani people have cultivated this fertile but difficult mountain terrain generation after generation, creating large-scale terraced rice paddies fed by complex networks of channels that bring water from the mountaintops. Vital, life-sustaining and remarkable, the terraces are also out-of-this-world beautiful, especially between November and April when, filled with water, they seem as if conjured by some divine artist. [Photo: Jialiang Gao, peace-on-earth.org/Wikimedia Commons]

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Tongariro National Park In New Zealand – No matter what Boromir says, you can simply walk into Mordor. This highly volcanic region of New Zealand’s North Island is so preternatural, it stood in for the bleak wastelands of Sauron’s realm in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film adaptations. Experience it firsthand on a hike through the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, taking in such epic vistas as the blazing Red Crater, Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom in the films) and Emerald Lake, whose spectacular green waters appear that much more dazzling against the stark background of the volcanic rock.

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Vatnajökull Ice Caves In Iceland – Much of Iceland can barely be called ‘earthly’ as it is, so picking just one other-worldly landscape among its rich repertoire of strangeness is a task for sure. One treasure that stands out, however, for both its vastness and its ever-shifting form, is Vatnajökull Glacier. Europe’s largest glacier mass shrouds more than eight percent of Iceland, obscuring some of the country’s most active volcanoes and running up to a kilometre deep in some places. In summer, glacial meltwater cuts icy swathes underneath the surface, carving a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers which can be explored by travellers in the winter season. Like stepping right into Elsa’s enchanted palace.

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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White Sands National Monument In The US – Speaking of dunes: the world’s largest gypsum dune field can be found in south-central New Mexico, a brilliant white blanket stretching across 700 square kilometres of mystical terrain. Visitors can set out on one of the many trekking trails, enjoy a scenic picnic, join a ranger-led education programme, keep a keen eye peeled for fascinating wildlife (the white sands wood rat and the bleached earless lizard are cleverly camouflaged) and even sled down the glittering dunes. Arguably, however, the best times to take in the scenery are at dawn when the sand dons a red-pink hue, and at sunset, as the sand appears to glow. [Credit: Murray Foubister/Wikimedia Commons]

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland – Are these peculiar coastal formations the result of a volcanic fissure eruption 60 million of years ago, or did a few giants try to build a road after one too many pints of Guinness? Many local legends attempt to explain the incredible terrain composed over 40,000 basalt columns, with the most famous yarn telling of a giant named Finn who was challenged to a fight by another giant, Benandonner, across the sea in Scotland. Not one to run from a duel, Finn begins tearing up pieces of coastline and lobbing them into the sea, building a bridge that allows him to reach Benandonner. If an epic road trip is on your bucket list this year, consider taking in this fantastical site along Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coastal Route. [Credit: portengaround/Wikimedia Commons]

Travel

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Bucket List: 17 Surreal Landscapes You Won’t Believe.

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Mono Lake In The US – Clusters of craggy rocks rise cryptically from this ancient saline lake in California, yet despite its at times chilling countenance, the vast inland sea is anything but desolate: Mono Lake is home to trillions of brine shrimp that feed millions of migratory birds each year, while the lake’s tributary streams provide water to residents of Los Angeles more than 500 kilometres to the south. Aside from marvelling at the enigmatic tufa towers – as the jagged mineral formations are called – you can partake in birdwatching and kayaking, as well as hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains which provide the dramatic backdrop for this extraordinary place… as if it needed one.