Land of Desert and Lakes

Lencois Maranheses National Park at first seems to be a contradiction -- a desert filled with lakes. In fact, the park, stretching for hundreds of miles, is really a collection of dunes and seasonal lagoons. An aquifer, typically just a few yards beneath the dunes, swells during the rainy season and dots the park with turquoise freshwater pools. It creates a stunning landscape of blazing white sand and Caribbean blue waters.

On the way home from the National Park we stopped at a very different type of natural formation -- a single tree. All of the green in the photo above is from a single cashew tree, the largest in the world.