The sun isn't quite peeking over the horizon when I board the plane, but it is beginning to stain the sky with pink and yellow beyond the silhouettes of the mountains. That's where I'm headed. I don't know if I've ever seen anything more beautiful in my life—but I say that about everywhere I go.

As the plane takes off, the color grows in the sky until it at last overtakes the diamond-studded starry night. From up here I can see the rows and rows of various mountain ranges, each band a different shade from scarlet to maroon receding into the distance.