Surreal cities

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After the laziness of Jeri, I felt I needed to do something active and interesting, so I decided to pierce the interior of the scorchingly hot state of Piauí to go to Parque Nacional de Sete Cidades. Again, transportation was an issue. Our (me and a Swiss guy I met) ride bailed due to a broke car, so we thought we were stuck in Jeri. By chance I had talked with a man going up the coast in a Toyota (the name of any type of pick-up used to carry people and luggage to and from Jeri). We were able to snag a ride in the back of the truck, along with all the luggage. It was a great way to see the beach and countryside, with open air, sun, a breeze, and we were even treated to a delicious lunch at a beach resort by the French couple that was riding inside the truck.

After a bus ride that night, we made it to Piripiri a typical town of the interior of Brazil. Waking in the morning, we grabbed a bus out to the park. Sete Cidades is a national park where, due unique erosion, the rock formations have amazingly surreal characteristics that resemble anthills, repitilian scales, and various imaginative objects such as faces, animals, and even a map of Brazil. They are divided into seven sections (or cities), each with its own characteristics.

Besides the astounding rock formations, the park is extremely rich in prehistoric wall paintings--hundreds upons hundreds of them. I don´t say cave paintings because these pictures are actually outside, in the exposed air, on some of the rock faces. Anthropologists are unsure of the exact origin of the paintings but have dated them to be between 3,000 and 5,000 years old. Many of them are hands or objects like the sun, cats, or centipedes, but others may even be some sort of prehistoric calendars. Walking through the bizarre cities, I wondered at what those would painted the walls must have though, thousands of years ago.

The whole thing seems quite unbelievable really, but well worth all the effort that it took to get there. And it´s all the more mysterious since there are so many more questions left unanswered.

At the moment now, I´m in São Luis, quite far up north, about to make a journey by riverboat into Amazon in several days. Undoubtedly there will be all types of adventures to relate when I make it out.

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Photos

View from atop Segunda Cidade
The rocks rise from the ground like an enormous, jumbled city of titanic anthills.

A Tartaruga
´The Turtle´ in the sixth city has the shell of a gigantic turtle.

Pedra do Índio
See anything in these rocks?

Wall paintings
All over the place, some have been decyphered, but many remain mysterious.

Wall paintings
It´s amazing that these have survived, open to the elements for thousands of years.

Wall paintings
What does it mean?

Comments

[Carly]

cave paintings
Oh man, these pictures really bring out the anthropologist in me... good luck with the piranhas!