The beautiful and environmentally protected archipelago of FERNANDO DE NORONHA, lies in the equatorial Atlantic some 545km from Pernambuco, though it’s actually nearer to Rio Grande do Norte. Access is mainly from Natal, Recife and São Luís. Boasting more than sixteen very clean and stunning beaches, it’s hard to beat for scuba diving – […]

Over the bridge, or across the river by boat, and into Bahia state lies Petrolina’s poorer sister town, JUAZEIRO, not to be confused with Juazeiro do Norte. Many of its inhabitants had their homes flooded when dams created the enormous Sobradinho lake just upstream in the 1960s. Since then the area around Juazeiro has […]

After the villages that have gone before, PETROLINA seems like a city. Certainly, by the standards of the sertão, it’s a large, thriving and relatively prosperous town, thanks to the river trade to places downstream. On the waterfront, you can occasionally see riverboats adorned with carrancas, carved wooden figureheads bolted onto the prow, brightly […]

In Easter week, Caruara’s market crowds are swollen with tourists and pilgrims heading for NOVA JERUSALÉM, in the heart of the agreste, 50km from the bustling town; the turn-off is on the right just after Caruaru, on the BR-104, marked “Campina Grande”. After 24km another turn-off, to the left, the PE-145, leads to the […]

To explore the tradition of figurinhas further, it’s worth making the short journey to ALTO DO MOURA, 6km up the road from Caruaru: take a taxi or the marked bus (departures every 2hr) from Rua 13 de Maio, one of the roads leading out of the centre towards the rodoviária. It’s a dirt road […]

Home of the largest market in the Northeast, CARUARU is also ideally placed for excursions into the sertão. Saturday is the main market day, but Wednesday and Friday are busy, too.
People come from all over the Northeast for the market, which dominates the town, with stalls filling the squares and people clogging the streets. […]

BEZERROS, the last town before Caruaru, is the home of a famous artist and printer, Jota Borges, some of whose work you may have seen in the Casa da Cultura and the Penha craft shop in Recife. Borges has a roadside workshop on the left as you leave town. Inside, you can see the […]