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The first image is the lovely church of São Raimundo Nonato. There are all sorts of celebrations during his month: processions, dances, and a market. I was told that babies born in August are usually named after the saint, so I bought the cutest rag doll and called her Raimunda Nonata. The place to shop, though, is the wonderful Cerâmica Serra da Capivara, a foundation initiative that is a private company today and employs 22 people. Some of their products can be seen below, but please visit their site, too.
The wild pigs are called caititu; the monkey playing on the car is a very mischievous macaco-prego. I also took a picture of a tiny sagüi monkey; there were tons of them on a tree right next to the restaurant. The tall cactus is the famous mandacaru; the other is the equally celebrated (in song, etc.) xique-xique, and the red-topped one is called coroa de padre. Our guide, Rafael, holds a rattlesnake skin we found. We just walked on hoping its owner wasn't too close by. There were also wild monkeys (we didn't even get close to those guys), killer bees, and wasps the size of my fist on some of the trails. You just walked by very, very quietly. My cousin, who so courageously volunteered to join me on this trip, managed to step on a meter-long venomous jararaca snake. Fortunately for her, the snake was more scared than she was and slithered away really fast. Too fast for me to take her picture, so people will just have to believe us.
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