serra da capivara
The fifth and final blog post in the Serra da Capivara series finally zooms out to showcase the wider beauty of the land, including panoramas of the unique rocky formations in the region. The area contains a wild and beautiful mixture of cliffs, caves, rocks, forests, and vast plains and scrubland. These images were taken in the summer, the driest and hottest time of the year, as is reflected by the dry vegetation.
The caves in the Serra da Capivara National Park are truly stunning - even the ones left unpainted by our prehistoric cousins. The fourth blog post in this series features a few of the cave walks through the park, which are best enjoyed on local anthropological tours that will guide you through the history and interpretation of the cave paintings.
The third part of my Serra da Capivara blog series is a little different: these are images of the locally-produced, handcrafted ceramics inspired by the ancient cave paintings discovered in the region. These are made as souvenirs for tourists, and help support the local population that lives in the surrounding areas. Perhaps due to its location, the national park remains somewhat undiscovered, and has yet to properly tap into Brazil’s international tourism market.
For the second post in my Serra da Capivara blog series, I feature some of the amazing cave paintings in its ancient caves. Some of these date back some 25,000 years, giving valuable insights into the lives of early South American communities. Intertwined with the paintings are some of mother nature’s own artworks, such as the ruffling textures of the caves’ walls.
Time for something a little different! This month, I am featuring the Serra da Capivara National Park, in the northeast of Brazil, over five weekend posts. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is of great interest to geologists, anthropologists, and animal behaviour scientists. It houses some of the oldest cave paintings in South America, and, for the animal enthusiasts among us, a tool-using population of capuchin monkeys. In this first blog post, I share some of the fauna inhabiting the park, including these clever primates. I was even lucky enough to watch them crack nuts with rocks for several minutes, and caught a couple of images of this behaviour too.
