This place has become one of the main attractions of Mauritius in the 60-ies of the last century.
Chamarel is a village in the South-West of Mauritius, where about 700 people.
The village is known all over the world with natural attractions in its surroundings waterfalls, which are formed by the river falling right into the crater of an extinct volcano and the coloured Sands. However, Sands is not the proper name for this miracle of nature. Fragments of basalt, remaining after the eruption and volcanic ash mixed with clay, formed a seven coloured earth, the different layers which do not mix even after rains due to their different density and mass. Different colors, as scientists believe, arose as a result of the fact that the layers of lava cooled at different temperatures. There is a more simple explanation: oxidized iron contained in the local soil has a reddish color, and oxidized aluminum, which here also has the colors blue-green shades, hence the different color.
This place has become one of the main attractions of Mauritius in the 60-ies of the last century. Due to the large influx of tourists the authorities of the island decided to protect the dunes of Chamarel wooden fence. Visitors can only admire the colored Sands, but to walk on the sand dunes, the visitors is not possible. But tourists can buy in local stores a test tube filled with wonderful colored sand. It is noteworthy that the layers of sand of different colors in the tube also do not mix: if a test tube and shake to mix the layers together, they after a while again will be divided into seven colors: red, brown, purple, green, blue, Magenta, and yellow.
