Vale do Catimbau

The rock here has been worked on twice, by two different hands. Erosion took the sandstone of an old basin and left chapadões, canyons and caves standing out of the caatinga; then people came and painted the undersides of the overhangs. Vila do Catimbau sits at the gate to it, with the guides' association, shops selling the same figures again on pottery, and lizards out on the warm stone in front of you.

Catimbau became a national park in December 2002 and takes in 62,300 hectares of Pernambuco across Buíque, Ibimirim and Tupanatinga. Twenty-seven archaeological sites lie inside it, which makes it the second largest archaeological park in the country, and the inscriptions and paintings on its shelters are put at around six thousand years old. The stone is older by a long way: the Cachoeira do Catimbau geosite, 850 metres from the village and rated of national relevance, exposes Paleozoic Tacaratu sandstone laid down by braided rivers, with alveolar erosion hollowing out the cave beside it. The caatinga growing on it carries endemic cacti and bromeliads, and the wildlife you actually see is the wildlife that holds still on rock, papa-vento lizards especially, along with mocó, tatu-peba, galo-de-campina and seriema. Trails are short and graded easy, the guides' association works out of Vila do Catimbau, and the waterfall follows the rain, thinning to almost nothing across a seven-month dry season.