Secret marvels of the world (and where to find them)

The road to Hana to the sleepy town nestled in the fragrant bosom of Maui’s rainforest is extraordinary, but perhaps the most extraordinary thing you’ll see on this journey is the “painted forest” of rainbow eucalyptus trees: a quirk of nature producing trees that look like frozen rainbows, thanks to sections of bark shedding at different times during the year. The real beauty of this phenomenon, however, is that the process is ongoing, so the multicolored streaks shed continuously. The rainbow eucalyptus grove can be found at mile marker 7 on Maui’s Hana Highway in Hawaii. You can also see some of the trees at the nearby Keʼanae Arboretum.

Jigokudani was named “Hell Valley” because of its steaming springs and saw-edged cliffs. But there is nothing infernal about the sight of Japanese macaques (or “snow monkeys”) lolling in the naturally hot pools, particularly during the four months of the year when the valley is coated in snow. The park is open year-round but bathing macaques are only guaranteed in winter.

The Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east is a place where the Earth’s fuming fury is never far from the surface. Kamchatka’s 6-kilometer-long Valley of Geysers is fed by the 250-degree celcius heat of the stratovolcano Kikhpinych. More than 100 hot springs and geysers huff steam into
the frigid air. This basin in Kronotsky Nature Reserve is so far-flung that its geological marvels were only fully explored in the 1970s. One of the most chilling discoveries was the Valley of Death, a narrow 2-kilometer-long creek where volcanic gases accumulate in such a high concentration that they kill animals and birds who stray too close.

It has taken millions of years and trillions of litres of water to sculpt out the beautiful rock
formations at Vale da Lua (Moon Valley), on Brazil’s São Miguel River. Stretching along a 1-kilometer course of water, just beyond the southern edge of the Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Veadeiros, is a bizarre looking series of natural rock formations, caves, waterfalls, pools and crevices. According to Brasilia University’s Instituto de Geociencias, the endless curves are all caused by something known as fluvial
abrasion, where the pressure of sand and continuously flowing water over several millennia has carved out the cups, bowls and smooth lines that you see today. Visitors can walk across the rocks, bathe in the rock pools and wade down many of the water courses. (Except during heavy rain.) But most amazing of all are the quartz crystals embedded within the rocks.

Turns out the Bahamas is the best place
in the world to hit the sands with some rather unusual local beach bums: swimming pigs. The
southernmost beach on the uninhabited Big Major Cay, part of the Exuma Cays, is a porcine
paradise, home to a gaggle of wild pigs that love nothing more than to take a daily ocean dip. Some locals believe that ships carrying livestock to Nassau wrecked off the coast of the islet, leaving the animals to swim ashore to the cay; others think that they were intentionally brought by explorers (perhaps even Columbus himself) and pirates. Whatever their origin, the pigs are a hit with visitors looking for an unconventional day at the beach.

Spears of spruce rise up from the water at this pristine lake, where a forest was drowned after an earthquake. The Kebin earthquake in 1911 triggered a landslide in the Tian Shan mountains, creating a natural dam that eventually brought this glassy, 400-meter lake into existence, submerging part of the forest. The lake occupies an ear-popping location at 2000 meters of altitude, close to Kazakhstan’s border with Kyrgyzstan. Glowing an unearthly shade of turquoise and backed by forest-clad mountains, the sunken forest adds to the mystique of this tranquil place and has made it a hit among divers.

Rising from a remote corner of the world’s largest network of salt flats, the Makgadikgadi pans of the Kalahari Desert in northern Botswana, Kubu is a magical world of epic baobabs and horizons that never seem to end. The word “kubu” means hippopotamus in the local Setswana language. When you sit with your back to a baobab and look out over the never-ending sweep of a world seemingly without end, time slips away into
eternity.

This tiny house is marooned on a rocky islet on the Drina River, the watery seam that separates Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Built in the 1960s by locals yearning for some blissful isolation, the photogenic chalet seems to defy gravity on its rocky perch, with barely enough shore space to moor a kayak. Vulnerable to flooding, this pocket-sized hideaway has been rebuilt more than once. These days it’s much photographed by visitors to tranquil Bajina Basta village, and remains a curiosity for canoeists wending their way down the river.