Qualla: Brazil & the Atlantic Coast https://qualla.com/brazil en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:24:57 GMT Qualla episodic false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Brazil & the Atlantic Coast https://qualla.com/brazil Federal Territory of Ponta Porã https://qualla.com/federal-territory-of-ponta-pora/ For three years Brazil governed its Paraguayan frontier as a federal territory — long enough to move the capital twice, burn through four governors, and vanish from the map.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/0/5/federal-territory-of-ponta-pora-wp/6u05-federal-territory-of-ponta-pora-combined.mp3 6:00 full Presidente Epitácio https://qualla.com/presidente-epitacio/ Photo credit Mateus Hidalgo, CC BY-SA 2.5 br. The last stop on the Sorocabana railway, where São Paulo runs out of land and a dam turned a working river port into a beach town.

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Image: Mateus Hidalgo | CC BY-SA 2.5 br

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/4/u/presidente-epitacio-wp/6u4u-presidente-epitacio-combined.mp3 5:38 full Bastos https://qualla.com/bastos-brazil/ Photo credit Governo do Estado de São Paulo, CC BY 2.0. A Japanese colony founded in 1928 on a São Paulo cattle farm became first Brazil's silk capital and then its egg capital — a town of 21,000 people and millions of hens.

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Image: Governo do Estado de São Paulo | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/5/g/bastos-brazil-wp/6u5g-bastos-brazil-combined.mp3 5:28 full Dracena https://qualla.com/dracena/ Photo credit José Rosael/HélioNobre/Museu Paulista da USP, Public domain. Four men laid a foundation stone in the forest in 1945, held a contest to name the place, and a houseplant won.

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Image: José Rosael/HélioNobre/Museu Paulista da USP | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/5/m/dracena-wp/6u5m-dracena-combined.mp3 5:11 full Serranópolis https://qualla.com/serranopolis/ Eleven thousand years ago someone here was buried wearing a necklace of human teeth and mother of pearl — among the oldest known jewelry in the Americas.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/e/p/serranopolis-wp/6uep-serranopolis-combined.mp3 5:39 full Emas National Park https://qualla.com/emas-national-park/ Photo credit Andreza Oliveira Borges, CC BY-SA 3.0. A UNESCO-protected island of Brazilian cerrado where beetle larvae turn giant termite mounds into glowing green towers, and where 400 bird species share a plateau surrounded on all sides by soybeans.

Read more: Emas National Park on Qualla

Image: Andreza Oliveira Borges | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/f/3/emas-national-park-wk/6uf3-emas-national-park-combined.mp3 5:53 full Borá https://qualla.com/bora/ Photo credit Valter Campanato/ABr, CC BY 3.0 br. Brazil's second-smallest municipality, a São Paulo farm town of roughly 900 people that has more registered voters than residents, once led the country in Facebook signups, and waited 44 years for its first robbery.

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Image: Valter Campanato/ABr | CC BY 3.0 br

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/h/1/bora-wp/6uh1-bora-combined.mp3 5:33 full Tupã, São Paulo https://qualla.com/tupa-sao-paulo/ Photo credit José Rosael/HélioNobre/Museu Paulista da USP, Public domain. Named for a thunder god and founded on ground cleared by a violent frontier, Tupã holds Brazil's great museum of Kaingang memory, a century-old Latvian colony, and the country's biggest peanut harvest.

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Image: José Rosael/HélioNobre/Museu Paulista da USP | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/h/5/tupa-sao-paulo-wp/6uh5-tupa-sao-paulo-combined.mp3 5:44 full Araçatuba https://qualla.com/aracatuba/ Photo credit Caiocapelari, CC BY-SA 3.0. For three decades the price of Brazilian beef was set in pencil in a public square in Araçatuba, a railway camp of 1908 that grew into the northwest of São Paulo's largest city and still answers to the name Capital of Fat Cattle.

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Image: Caiocapelari | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/h/p/aracatuba-wp/6uhp-aracatuba-combined.mp3 5:40 full Jaú https://qualla.com/jau/ Photo credit Dario Sanches from SÃO PAULO, BRASIL, CC BY-SA 2.0. Named for a greedy catfish, Jaú once shipped more coffee than any station on earth; today it turns out up to 120,000 pairs of women's shoes a day and plays a sport it invented in a school gym.

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Image: Dario Sanches from SÃO PAULO, BRASIL | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/j/3/jau-wk/6uj3-jau-combined.mp3 5:55 full Abandonment of Buffaloes in Brotas https://qualla.com/abandonment-of-buffaloes-in-brotas/ Photo credit Sturm, CC BY-SA 4.0. An anonymous tip in November 2021 led police to a farm outside Brotas where more than a thousand buffaloes had been left without pasture or water, in a case Brazilian animal-welfare groups came to describe as one of the worst in the country's history.

Read more: Abandonment of Buffaloes in Brotas on Qualla

Image: Sturm | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/j/9/abandonment-of-buffaloes-in-brotas-wp/6uj9-abandonment-of-buffaloes-in-brotas-combined.mp3 5:37 full Catanduva https://qualla.com/catanduva/ Photo credit Creedence, CC BY-SA 3.0. A city of 115,000 in northern São Paulo state that grew out of a settlement called Cerradinho and became the place where a startling share of Brazil's electric fans are built.

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Image: Creedence | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/j/p/catanduva-wp/6ujp-catanduva-combined.mp3 5:17 full Araraquara https://qualla.com/araraquara/ Photo credit Gustavo S. Bergamim, Public domain. A city of a quarter million in central São Paulo state whose Tupi name means lair of the macaws, built by railway workers and orange growers, and known across Brazil as the Abode of the Sun.

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Image: Gustavo S. Bergamim | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/j/s/araraquara-wp/6ujs-araraquara-combined.mp3 5:51 full Jaboticabal https://qualla.com/jaboticabal/ A São Paulo town named for a tree that fruits directly on its trunk, founded on a donated inheritance, and now Brazil's leading peanut producer and home to one of the country's most important agricultural science campuses.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/j/x/jaboticabal-wp/6ujx-jaboticabal-combined.mp3 5:01 full Thermas dos Laranjais https://qualla.com/thermas-dos-laranjais/ Prospectors drilling for oil in northern São Paulo state hit hot water instead - and the park built on that mistake became the most visited water park in the Americas.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/m/4/thermas-dos-laranjais-wp/6um4-thermas-dos-laranjais-combined.mp3 4:57 full Festa do Peão de Barretos https://qualla.com/festa-do-peao-de-barretos/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. A dare between exhausted cattle drovers in a São Paulo slaughterhouse town grew into the largest rodeo in the Southern Hemisphere, staged in an arena designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/m/7/festa-do-peao-de-barretos-wp/6um7-festa-do-peao-de-barretos-combined.mp3 5:01 full Bebedouro https://qualla.com/bebedouro/ Named for a stream where 19th-century drovers watered their cattle, Bebedouro traded coffee for oranges and became a research capital of Brazil's citrus belt.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/m/8/bebedouro-wp/6um8-bebedouro-combined.mp3 5:11 full Bauru Group https://qualla.com/bauru-group/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. A red sandstone stack beneath southeastern Brazil holds the country's richest record of the last dinosaurs — and of the strange land-running crocodiles that outnumbered them.

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Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/m/z/bauru-group-wp/6umz-bauru-group-combined.mp3 5:26 full Rio Claro, São Paulo https://qualla.com/rio-claro-sao-paulo/ Photo credit JonatasAvelino, CC BY-SA 4.0. A railway company planted an Australian forest here to feed its own furnaces, and the trees outlasted the trains — Rio Claro still keeps Brazil's only eucalyptus museum.

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Image: JonatasAvelino | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/n/0/rio-claro-sao-paulo-wp/6un0-rio-claro-sao-paulo-combined.mp3 5:27 full Pirassununga https://qualla.com/pirassununga/ Photo credit Emersonsilva114, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Tupi named this place for the noise migrating fish make fighting upriver; today the same town trains every officer in the Brazilian Air Force and distils the country's most famous cachaça.

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Image: Emersonsilva114 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/n/6/pirassununga-wp/6un6-pirassununga-combined.mp3 4:56 full Mogi Mirim https://qualla.com/mogi-mirim/ Photo credit Diana Breitenbach, CC BY-SA 3.0. A bandeirante waystation named for a small river of snakes, now an auto-parts town in São Paulo's interior — and the club where Rivaldo returned at 43 to play alongside his son.

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Image: Diana Breitenbach | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/n/8/mogi-mirim-wp/6un8-mogi-mirim-combined.mp3 5:13 full Piranguinho https://qualla.com/piranguinho/ Photo credit Public domain. A railway village in the Sapucaí valley that turned rapadura and roasted peanuts into an identity, and once a year builds a slab of candy longer than a swimming pool.

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Image: Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/p/8/piranguinho-wp/6up8-piranguinho-combined.mp3 4:40 full Alfenas https://qualla.com/alfenas/ Photo credit The original uploader was Dej espindola at Portuguese Wikipedia., Public domain. A landlocked coffee city in southern Minas Gerais that calls itself the gateway to the sea — a sea that engineers made in 1963 and that changed everything about the place.

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Image: The original uploader was Dej espindola at Portuguese Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/p/q/alfenas-wp/6upq-alfenas-combined.mp3 4:53 full Brodowski, São Paulo https://qualla.com/brodowski-sao-paulo/ Photo credit Anderson Bueno Pereira, CC BY-SA 4.0. A small coffee town on São Paulo's red earth where Cândido Portinari was born, painted his family's walls, and left behind a house that is now a museum of frescoes.

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Image: Anderson Bueno Pereira | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/0/brodowski-sao-paulo-wp/6uq0-brodowski-sao-paulo-combined.mp3 4:54 full Batatais https://qualla.com/batatais/ A sugarcane-belt city in São Paulo named — possibly — for a fire-snake, holding the largest collection of sacred art Cândido Portinari ever painted.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/1/batatais-wp/6uq1-batatais-combined.mp3 4:44 full Passos https://qualla.com/passos/ A southwestern Minas town whose name means "steps" and whose motto turns that into a promise — the way through, rather than the destination.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/f/passos-wk/6uqf-passos-combined.mp3 4:22 full Furnas do Bom Jesus State Park https://qualla.com/furnas-do-bom-jesus-state-park/ Photo credit Margarida61, CC BY-SA 3.0. A canyon cut into the northeastern edge of São Paulo state, where cerrado and Atlantic Forest meet and coffee country is slowly turning back into wilderness.

Read more: Furnas do Bom Jesus State Park on Qualla

Image: Margarida61 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/k/furnas-do-bom-jesus-state-park-wp/6uqk-furnas-do-bom-jesus-state-park-combined.mp3 5:18 full Peirópolis https://qualla.com/peiropolis/ Photo credit Andre Borges Lopes, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Minas Gerais lime village where a railway cut exposed the bones of the last dinosaurs in Brazil — and where the old station now houses the museum built to hold them.

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Image: Andre Borges Lopes | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/p/peiropolis-wp/6uqp-peiropolis-combined.mp3 5:13 full Sacramento, Minas Gerais https://qualla.com/sacramento-minas-gerais/ A coffee-and-cattle municipality in the Triângulo Mineiro whose old schoolhouse, founded by a teacher who died at 38, still draws visitors from across Brazil.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/q/sacramento-minas-gerais-wp/6uqq-sacramento-minas-gerais-combined.mp3 4:57 full Serra da Canastra National Park https://qualla.com/serra-da-canastra-national-park/ The tableland where the São Francisco River begins, falls 186 metres off an escarpment, and shares its grasslands with maned wolves, a nearly extinct duck, and the best cheese in Brazil.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/q/u/serra-da-canastra-national-park-wp/6uqu-serra-da-canastra-national-park-combined.mp3 5:42 full Capitólio Rockfall https://qualla.com/capitolio-rockfall/ Photo credit João Paulo Domingos Terrazam, CC BY-SA 4.0. On a holiday Saturday in January 2022, a canyon wall on Furnas Lake broke away above four crowded tourist boats, killing ten people and changing how Brazil's inland sea is navigated.

Read more: Capitólio Rockfall on Qualla

Image: João Paulo Domingos Terrazam | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/r/4/capitolio-rockfall-wp/6ur4-capitolio-rockfall-combined.mp3 5:11 full Furnas Dam https://qualla.com/furnas-dam/ Photo credit Luiz coelho, CC BY-SA 3.0. Brazil's first great dam closed on the Grande River in 1963 and gave a landlocked state 1,473 square kilometres of open water — the Mar de Minas, the Sea of Minas.

Read more: Furnas Dam on Qualla

Image: Luiz coelho | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/r/4/furnas-dam-wp/6ur4-furnas-dam-combined.mp3 4:22 full São Roque de Minas https://qualla.com/sao-roque-de-minas/ A town of seven thousand sitting almost entirely inside a national park, where Brazil's greatest inland river begins as a spring and the local cheese has its own tourist route.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/r/h/sao-roque-de-minas-wp/6urh-sao-roque-de-minas-combined.mp3 4:33 full Uberlândia https://qualla.com/uberlandia/ Photo credit Ariel S. Freitas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Minas Gerais is famous for small colonial towns; its second-largest city is neither small nor colonial, and it moves a startling share of Brazil's freight.

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Image: Ariel S. Freitas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/t/s/uberlandia-wk/6uts-uberlandia-combined.mp3 5:24 full Rio Quente https://qualla.com/rio-quente/ Photo credit 55953988@N00, CC BY 2.0. A Goiás town of three thousand people sits on a river that runs at body temperature, fed by rain that fell on a plateau and came back up a kilometre later, warm.

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Image: 55953988@N00 | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/v/6/rio-quente-wp/6uv6-rio-quente-combined.mp3 4:34 full Palmelo https://qualla.com/palmelo/ Photo credit Prefeitura de Palmelo, Public domain. Goias's smallest municipality grew outward from a single Spiritist meeting hall founded in 1929, and it remains the only town in Brazil where the census finds Spiritists to be the largest religious group.

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Image: Prefeitura de Palmelo | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/v/t/palmelo-wp/6uvt-palmelo-combined.mp3 5:51 full Santa Cruz de Goiás https://qualla.com/santa-cruz-de-goias/ One of the oldest towns in Goiás once administered a judicial district nearly the size of Portugal; today its countryside holds twice as many people as its streets.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/v/t/santa-cruz-de-goias-wp/6uvt-santa-cruz-de-goias-combined.mp3 5:58 full Romaria https://qualla.com/romaria/ A diamond camp once called Dirty Water renamed itself Pilgrimage, and every August a town of 3,500 people disappears beneath one of the largest religious gatherings in Minas Gerais.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/w/h/romaria-wp/6uwh-romaria-combined.mp3 4:57 full Estrela do Sul https://qualla.com/estrela-do-sul/ A town that renamed itself after a diamond an enslaved woman pulled from the Bagagem River in 1853 - and the last place in the Triângulo Mineiro where colonial houses still stand.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/w/j/estrela-do-sul-wp/6uwj-estrela-do-sul-combined.mp3 5:37 full Coromandel, Minas Gerais https://qualla.com/coromandel-minas-gerais/ Photo credit Gustyofwind, CC BY-SA 4.0. The largest diamond ever found in Brazil came out of a creek here in 1938 - and in 2025 the second largest came out of another creek eight kilometers away.

Read more: Coromandel, Minas Gerais on Qualla

Image: Gustyofwind | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/w/q/coromandel-minas-gerais-wp/6uwq-coromandel-minas-gerais-combined.mp3 5:39 full Serra da Saudade https://qualla.com/serra-da-saudade/ Brazil's least populous municipality is a Minas Gerais hill town of 833 people, named for a word other languages have to borrow.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/x/3/serra-da-saudade-wp/6ux3-serra-da-saudade-combined.mp3 5:00 full Paracatu https://qualla.com/paracatu-minas-gerais/ A colonial gold town in northwestern Minas Gerais where a national heritage centre and one of Brazil's largest open-pit gold mines share the same hillside.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/u/y/w/paracatu-minas-gerais-wp/6uyw-paracatu-minas-gerais-combined.mp3 5:38 full Rondonópolis https://qualla.com/rondonopolis/ Photo credit Public domain. Mato Grosso's third-largest city grew from a telegraph route into the place where Brazil's soybean frontier meets the rails.

Read more: Rondonópolis on Qualla

Image: Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/1/4/rondonopolis-wp/6v14-rondonopolis-combined.mp3 5:17 full Chapada dos Guimarães National Park https://qualla.com/chapada-dos-guimaraes-national-park/ Photo credit Chostakovis, CC BY-SA 3.0. Red sandstone cliffs above Cuiabá hold an 86-meter waterfall, the headwaters of the Pantanal, and the actual geographic centre of South America.

Read more: Chapada dos Guimarães National Park on Qualla

Image: Chostakovis | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/2/2/chapada-dos-guimaraes-national-park-wp/6v22-chapada-dos-guimaraes-national-park-combined.mp3 5:00 full Caverna Aroe Jari https://qualla.com/caverna-aroe-jari/ Photo credit Original uploader was Dave Bunnell at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5. Brazil's largest sandstone cave runs 1,550 meters through 400-million-year-old rock, and the Bororo who named it called it the dwelling of souls.

Read more: Caverna Aroe Jari on Qualla

Image: Original uploader was Dave Bunnell at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/2/8/caverna-aroe-jari-wp/6v28-caverna-aroe-jari-combined.mp3 4:10 full Gruta da Lagoa Azul State Park https://qualla.com/gruta-da-lagoa-azul-state-park/ Photo credit Letícia Tavares, CC BY-SA 4.0. A limestone chamber in Mato Grosso holds a pool of impossibly blue water — and has been locked shut for more than two decades because visitors loved it nearly to death.

Read more: Gruta da Lagoa Azul State Park on Qualla

Image: Letícia Tavares | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/2/j/gruta-da-lagoa-azul-state-park-wp/6v2j-gruta-da-lagoa-azul-state-park-combined.mp3 4:41 full Barra do Garças https://qualla.com/barra-do-garcas/ Photo credit The original uploader was Maarten Deprez at Esperanto Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 1.0. At the confluence of the Garças and the Araguaia, beneath a mountain range named for the noise it makes, a Brazilian river town built a landing pad for flying saucers — and waits.

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Image: The original uploader was Maarten Deprez at Esperanto Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 1.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/4/v/barra-do-garcas-wk/6v4v-barra-do-garcas-combined.mp3 5:09 full Araguaia State Park https://qualla.com/araguaia-state-park/ Photo credit Milena Freitas, CC BY-SA 4.0. A quarter-million hectares of Mato Grosso that becomes a shallow inland sea every year, holding the seam where the cerrado gives way to the Amazon.

Read more: Araguaia State Park on Qualla

Image: Milena Freitas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/g/c/araguaia-state-park-wp/6vgc-araguaia-state-park-combined.mp3 5:14 full Abadia de Goiás https://qualla.com/abadia-de-goias/ Photo credit Wufosan, CC BY-SA 4.0. A small municipality on the edge of Goiânia became the permanent resting place for six thousand tonnes of waste from Brazil's worst radiological accident — and for the memory of the four people it killed.

Read more: Abadia de Goiás on Qualla

Image: Wufosan | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/h/b/abadia-de-goias-wp/6vhb-abadia-de-goias-combined.mp3 6:05 full Basilica of the Eternal Father, Trindade https://qualla.com/basilica-of-the-eternal-father-trindade/ Photo credit Febo Apolo, CC BY-SA 3.0. The only basilica on earth dedicated to the Divine Eternal Father grew out of a clay medallion found in a Goiás creek bed — and now receives more than four million pilgrims a year.

Read more: Basilica of the Eternal Father, Trindade on Qualla

Image: Febo Apolo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/h/c/basilica-of-the-eternal-father-trindade-wp/6vhc-basilica-of-the-eternal-father-trindade-combined.mp3 5:33 full Grande Hotel de Goiânia https://qualla.com/grande-hotel-de-goiania/ Photo credit Amanda Martins Sousa, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first hotel in Brazil's newest capital, a three-storey Art Deco box that Claude Lévi-Strauss saw in 1937 and hated - and that Goiânia has been arguing over ever since.

Read more: Grande Hotel de Goiânia on Qualla

Image: Amanda Martins Sousa | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/h/c/grande-hotel-de-goiania-wp/6vhc-grande-hotel-de-goiania-combined.mp3 4:51 full Serra Dourada State Park https://qualla.com/serra-dourada-state-park/ Photo credit Carla de Deus, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 56-kilometre stone ridge in western Goiás that shelters the paper-barked state tree of Goiás, thousands of springs, and a park whose boundaries nobody has ever fully settled.

Read more: Serra Dourada State Park on Qualla

Image: Carla de Deus | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/h/h/serra-dourada-state-park-wp/6vhh-serra-dourada-state-park-combined.mp3 5:31 full Abadiânia https://qualla.com/abadiania/ Photo credit Prefeitura de Abadiânia, Public domain. A highway town in Goiás that built its entire economy around one man's healing centre, and had to work out what it was after he was convicted of raping dozens of women.

Read more: Abadiânia on Qualla

Image: Prefeitura de Abadiânia | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/7/abadiania-wp/6vj7-abadiania-combined.mp3 6:32 full Caverna dos Ecos https://qualla.com/caverna-dos-ecos/ A cave in central Goiás with no stalactites, no colour and no decoration - just 1,380 metres of mica schist, a 142-metre descent, and a black lake that has been filling with rainwater for longer than anyone knows.

Read more: Caverna dos Ecos on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/t/caverna-dos-ecos-wp/6vjt-caverna-dos-ecos-combined.mp3 5:08 full Cidade Eclética https://qualla.com/cidade-ecletica/ An air force pilot renamed himself The Diver, led a caravan out of Rio in 1956, and founded a town on the plateau west of Brasília dedicated to unifying every religion on Earth. It is still there.

Read more: Cidade Eclética on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/t/cidade-ecletica-wp/6vjt-cidade-ecletica-combined.mp3 5:31 full Candangolândia https://qualla.com/candangolandia/ Photo credit Nevinho, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first camp built for the workers who raised Brasília, and the neighbourhood that kept their name after the city they made had moved on without them.

Read more: Candangolândia on Qualla

Image: Nevinho | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/v/candangolandia-wp/6vjv-candangolandia-combined.mp3 5:24 full Brasília National Park https://qualla.com/brasilia-national-park/ Photo credit Renato BSB, CC BY-SA 4.0. Brazilians call it Água Mineral and swim in its spring-fed pools, but the park is also the reservoir, firebreak and cerrado refuge that keeps the capital drinking.

Read more: Brasília National Park on Qualla

Image: Renato BSB | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/y/brasilia-national-park-wp/6vjy-brasilia-national-park-combined.mp3 5:02 full Cláudio Santoro National Theater https://qualla.com/claudio-santoro-national-theater/ Photo credit Luis Dantas, Public domain. A concrete pyramid that has spent much of its life closed — and whose most famous surface is not a stage but a wall designed to be performed on by the sun.

Read more: Cláudio Santoro National Theater on Qualla

Image: Luis Dantas | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/y/claudio-santoro-national-theater-wp/6vjy-claudio-santoro-national-theater-combined.mp3 5:34 full JK Memorial https://qualla.com/jk-memorial/ Photo credit Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The man who built Brasília died with his political rights annulled; five years later his widow commissioned the tomb that put him back at the centre of his own city.

Read more: JK Memorial on Qualla

Image: Cayambe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/y/jk-memorial-wp/6vjy-jk-memorial-combined.mp3 4:52 full Praça dos Três Poderes https://qualla.com/praca-dos-tres-poderes/ Photo credit Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting), CC BY-SA 3.0. An open triangle where Brazil's three branches of government face each other as equals — and where, on 8 January 2023, that arrangement was physically attacked.

Read more: Praça dos Três Poderes on Qualla

Image: Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/j/y/praca-dos-tres-poderes-wp/6vjy-praca-dos-tres-poderes-combined.mp3 5:11 full São Jorge https://qualla.com/sao-jorge/ Photo credit Texugo, CC BY-SA 3.0. A quartz-mining camp that ran out of buyers and reinvented itself as the front door to Chapada dos Veadeiros, where the standing advice for getting around is to walk, preferably barefoot.

Read more: São Jorge on Qualla

Image: Texugo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/z/sao-jorge-wk/6vmz-sao-jorge-combined.mp3 5:06 full Águas Emendadas Ecological Station https://qualla.com/aguas-emendadas-ecological-station/ Photo credit Agência Brasília, CC BY 2.0. A six-kilometre strip of boggy grassland on the outskirts of Brasília where water rising a few hundred metres apart sets off toward two different oceans.

Read more: Águas Emendadas Ecological Station on Qualla

Image: Agência Brasília | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/n/p/aguas-emendadas-ecological-station-wp/6vnp-aguas-emendadas-ecological-station-combined.mp3 4:47 full Vila Boa, Goiás https://qualla.com/vila-boa-goias/ Photo credit VMStraka, Public domain. A filling station on the highway to Salvador that soybean money turned into a municipality in a single generation — and which shares its name, confusingly, with the colonial capital of Goiás.

Read more: Vila Boa, Goiás on Qualla

Image: VMStraka | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/q/d/vila-boa-goias-wp/6vqd-vila-boa-goias-combined.mp3 5:27 full Grande Sertão Veredas National Park https://qualla.com/grande-sertao-veredas-national-park/ Photo credit Vitor 1234, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 230,000-hectare Brazilian national park whose founding decree lists, among its legal objectives, the preservation of a landscape described in a novel.

Read more: Grande Sertão Veredas National Park on Qualla

Image: Vitor 1234 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/r/6/grande-sertao-veredas-national-park-wp/6vr6-grande-sertao-veredas-national-park-combined.mp3 5:14 full Trombas https://qualla.com/trombas/ A quiet cattle municipality in northern Goiás that was, for a decade in the 1950s and 60s, the site of one of the most effective peasant land movements in Brazilian history.

Read more: Trombas on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/t/7/trombas-wp/6vt7-trombas-combined.mp3 5:53 full Serra da Mesa Dam https://qualla.com/serra-da-mesa-dam/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Brazil's largest reservoir by volume sits not in the Amazon but in the dry cerrado of Goias, holding 54.4 billion cubic metres of water above a powerhouse buried inside a hill.

Read more: Serra da Mesa Dam on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/t/9/serra-da-mesa-dam-wp/6vt9-serra-da-mesa-dam-combined.mp3 4:56 full Lapa Terra Ronca https://qualla.com/lapa-terra-ronca/ Photo credit RICARDO CARVALHO DA ROCHA LIMA, CC BY-SA 3.0. A cave named for the sound it makes, with a mouth 96 metres tall, where every August pilgrims carry candles into the dark of the Goias cerrado.

Read more: Lapa Terra Ronca on Qualla

Image: RICARDO CARVALHO DA ROCHA LIMA | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/b/lapa-terra-ronca-wp/6vwb-lapa-terra-ronca-combined.mp3 4:35 full Itaituba https://qualla.com/itaituba/ Photo credit Amit Evron, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nugget City on the Tapajos: a gold-rush town that became a soy port, where the mercury from half a century of mining now shows up in Munduruku bloodwork.

Read more: Itaituba on Qualla

Image: Amit Evron | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/0/p/itaituba-wp/6z0p-itaituba-combined.mp3 5:51 full Oriximina https://qualla.com/oriximina/ Photo credit Ami Kenny, CC BY-SA 4.0. An Amazon municipality larger than most countries, straddling the Equator, where descendants of people who escaped slavery hold the first quilombo land title Brazil ever granted.

Read more: Oriximina on Qualla

Image: Ami Kenny | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/8/m/oriximina-wp/6z8m-oriximina-combined.mp3 5:02 full Óbidos, Pará https://qualla.com/obidos-para/ At Óbidos the Amazon is squeezed into its narrowest, deepest, fastest channel - the only place on the lower river where the whole flow can be measured at once, which is why the world's figure for the Amazon's discharge is a number taken here.

Read more: Óbidos, Pará on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/8/t/obidos-para-wp/6z8t-obidos-para-combined.mp3 5:05 full Sobral Santos II https://qualla.com/sobral-santos-ii/ An overloaded Amazon riverboat rolled over while docking at Óbidos before dawn on 19 September 1981; 178 people were counted alive, and the number who died has never been established.

Read more: Sobral Santos II on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/8/t/sobral-santos-ii-wp/6z8t-sobral-santos-ii-combined.mp3 5:41 full Monte Dourado https://qualla.com/monte-dourado/ Photo credit LeRoc, CC BY-SA 3.0. A planned company town on the Jari River, built from 1967 for Daniel K. Ludwig's attempt to turn a piece of the Amazon the size of a small country into the world's pulp supply - a venture whose pulp mill arrived from Japan already assembled, floating.

Read more: Monte Dourado on Qualla

Image: LeRoc | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/f/e/monte-dourado-wp/6zfe-monte-dourado-combined.mp3 4:49 full Mazagão Velho https://qualla.com/mazagao-velho/ A Portuguese fortress town evacuated from Morocco in 1769 was rebuilt in the Amazon rainforest — and its descendants still stage the war they left behind every July.

Read more: Mazagão Velho on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/g/q/mazagao-velho-wp/6zgq-mazagao-velho-combined.mp3 4:18 full Tucuruí Dam https://qualla.com/tucurui-dam/ Photo credit Sócrates Arantes/Eletronorte, CC BY 3.0 br. The first large hydroelectric dam built in the Brazilian Amazon powers millions of people — and displaced tens of thousands more, including Indigenous communities whose fisheries went under the water.

Read more: Tucuruí Dam on Qualla

Image: Sócrates Arantes/Eletronorte | CC BY 3.0 br

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/k/d/tucurui-dam-wp/6zkd-tucurui-dam-combined.mp3 5:44 full Abaetetuba https://qualla.com/abaetetuba/ Photo credit Luiz Eduardo lobato Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0. An island-laced city at the mouth of the Tocantins that carves the Amazon's lightest wood into the painted toys carried by pilgrims at Brazil's largest religious procession.

Read more: Abaetetuba on Qualla

Image: Luiz Eduardo lobato Silva | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/n/abaetetuba-wp/6ztn-abaetetuba-combined.mp3 4:16 full Estação das Docas https://qualla.com/estacao-das-docas/ Photo credit Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three iron warehouses built to load rubber, reopened in 2000 as Belém's waterfront cultural complex - with the dissolved ruins of a 1665 fort serving as its amphitheatre.

Read more: Estação das Docas on Qualla

Image: Cayambe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/x/estacao-das-docas-wp/6ztx-estacao-das-docas-combined.mp3 4:46 full Pará State Museum https://qualla.com/para-state-museum/ Photo credit JLPizzol, CC BY-SA 4.0. A colonial governors' palace on the Amazon, built with indigenous labor and stormed by rebels in 1835, now serves as the museum charged with keeping Pará's memory.

Read more: Pará State Museum on Qualla

Image: JLPizzol | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/x/para-state-museum-wp/6ztx-para-state-museum-combined.mp3 5:04 full Port of Belém https://qualla.com/port-of-belem/ Photo credit Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The engineers who designed Belém's modern port wanted to bury its old marketplace under landfill; the traders stopped them, and the port grew up around the dock it failed to erase.

Read more: Port of Belém on Qualla

Image: Cayambe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/x/port-of-belem-wp/6ztx-port-of-belem-combined.mp3 5:16 full Rodrigues Alves Park https://qualla.com/rodrigues-alves-park/ Photo credit Marajonida, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fifteen hectares of uncut Amazon forest survive inside Belém as a Belle Époque pleasure ground turned botanical garden, marking the boundary the Portuguese Crown drew in 1627.

Read more: Rodrigues Alves Park on Qualla

Image: Marajonida | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/x/rodrigues-alves-park-wp/6ztx-rodrigues-alves-park-combined.mp3 4:45 full Ver-o-Peso Complex https://qualla.com/ver-o-peso-complex/ Photo credit Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Named for a colonial weighing house, Belém's great riverside market is 35,000 square meters of working commerce - fish, açaí, herbs and medicine - run by vendors who once faced down the engineers who wanted to bury it.

Read more: Ver-o-Peso Complex on Qualla

Image: Cayambe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/t/x/ver-o-peso-complex-wp/6ztx-ver-o-peso-complex-combined.mp3 5:01 full Ilha do Marajó https://qualla.com/ilha-do-marajo/ A river island the size of Switzerland at the mouth of the Amazon, where a sophisticated mound-building society flourished for centuries before Europeans arrived, and where police now patrol the flooded grasslands on water buffalo.

Read more: Ilha do Marajó on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/u/f/ilha-do-marajo-wk/6zuf-ilha-do-marajo-combined.mp3 5:30 full Afuá https://qualla.com/afua/ Photo credit Rômulo Ferreira, CC BY 2.0. An Amazon delta town built on stilts where the streets are wooden planks, the ambulance is a bicycle, and motor vehicles have been shut out since 2002.

Read more: Afuá on Qualla

Image: Rômulo Ferreira | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/u/p/afua-wp/6zup-afua-combined.mp3 4:50 full Kaʼapor Sign Language https://qualla.com/ka-apor-sign-language/ In the forests of northwestern Maranhão, a Kaʼapor community built a sign language that hearing and deaf people share — a language with no relatives anywhere on earth, in which the past sits in front of you.

Read more: Kaʼapor Sign Language on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/x/6/ka-apor-sign-language-wp/6zx6-ka-apor-sign-language-combined.mp3 4:48 full Salinópolis https://qualla.com/salinopolis/ Photo credit Celso Abreu from Belém, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Pará's headline beach town was founded on salt and dried fish, and now empties and fills with the Amazon's rain calendar.

Read more: Salinópolis on Qualla

Image: Celso Abreu from Belém, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/z/y/k/salinopolis-wk/6zyk-salinopolis-combined.mp3 4:30 full Montes Claros https://qualla.com/montes-claros/ Photo credit Uirá Porã, CC BY-SA 2.0. The capital of northern Minas Gerais sits on a fault that never fully stops moving, above a cave system with its own underground river, in a sertão that grew a city out of a 1707 cattle grant.

Read more: Montes Claros on Qualla

Image: Uirá Porã | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/0/b/montes-claros-wk/7j0b-montes-claros-combined.mp3 5:43 full Grão Mogol State Park https://qualla.com/grao-mogol-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. A dry-country park on the northern Espinhaço where streams run year-round through rock gardens, and a stone road laid by enslaved workers still climbs out of the canyon.

Read more: Grão Mogol State Park on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/1/d/grao-mogol-state-park-wp/7j1d-grao-mogol-state-park-combined.mp3 5:34 full Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park https://qualla.com/cavernas-do-peruacu-national-park/ A limestone canyon in northern Minas Gerais holding some 140 catalogued caves, more than 80 archaeological sites, and rock art painted over ten thousand years ago.

Read more: Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/2/3/cavernas-do-peruacu-national-park-wk/7j23-cavernas-do-peruacu-national-park-combined.mp3 5:20 full Gruta do Janelão https://qualla.com/gruta-do-janelao/ Photo credit Edgar Corrêa Kanaykõ, CC BY-SA 3.0. The largest cave in the Peruaçu valley, where collapsed skylights drop columns of daylight onto small forests growing on the cave floor.

Read more: Gruta do Janelão on Qualla

Image: Edgar Corrêa Kanaykõ | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/2/d/gruta-do-janelao-wp/7j2d-gruta-do-janelao-combined.mp3 4:05 full Matias Cardoso https://qualla.com/matias-cardoso/ Photo credit Medsjp91, CC BY-SA 4.0. A brick church raised on the São Francisco in the 1670s — older than the gold that made Minas Gerais — in a town still carrying the name of the bandeirante who built it.

Read more: Matias Cardoso on Qualla

Image: Medsjp91 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/2/g/matias-cardoso-wp/7j2g-matias-cardoso-combined.mp3 4:57 full Jequitinhonha https://qualla.com/jequitinhonha/ Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. A town founded in 1811 to guard a river rumoured to hold diamonds, at the downstream end of a valley whose women turned clay into one of Brazil's great art traditions.

Read more: Jequitinhonha on Qualla

Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/f/jequitinhonha-wp/7j4f-jequitinhonha-combined.mp3 5:09 full Salinas, Minas Gerais https://qualla.com/salinas-minas-gerais/ Photo credit Medsjp, CC BY-SA 4.0. A town named for rock salt that Brazil's Congress declared, by federal law, the national capital of cachaça.

Read more: Salinas, Minas Gerais on Qualla

Image: Medsjp | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/h/salinas-minas-gerais-wp/7j4h-salinas-minas-gerais-combined.mp3 5:55 full Pedra Azul https://qualla.com/pedra-azul/ Photo credit Prefeitura municipal, Public domain. The world's largest cut aquamarine came out of the ground here, in a Jequitinhonha town founded on the ashes of a fire that burned for sixty days.

Read more: Pedra Azul on Qualla

Image: Prefeitura municipal | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/4/s/pedra-azul-wp/7j4s-pedra-azul-combined.mp3 5:36 full Boa Nova National Park https://qualla.com/boa-nova-national-park/ Photo credit Lucasribv, CC BY-SA 4.0. Where the caatinga meets the Atlantic forest, a tangled, unclassifiable woodland shelters 437 bird species and one small grey antbird that lives almost nowhere else.

Read more: Boa Nova National Park on Qualla

Image: Lucasribv | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/7/q/boa-nova-national-park-wp/7j7q-boa-nova-national-park-combined.mp3 5:57 full Gruta da Torrinha https://qualla.com/gruta-da-torrinha/ Photo credit DC, CC BY 2.0. A Chapada Diamantina show cave holding what is reckoned the second-largest aragonite flower in the world, along with gypsum needles that look like spun glass.

Read more: Gruta da Torrinha on Qualla

Image: DC | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/f/0/gruta-da-torrinha-wp/7jf0-gruta-da-torrinha-combined.mp3 5:04 full Palmeiras https://qualla.com/palmeiras/ A former diamond town in the Chapada Diamantina that now lives on trekking, and the gateway to the Vale do Capão beneath Morro do Pai Inácio.

Read more: Palmeiras on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/f/2/palmeiras-wk/7jf2-palmeiras-combined.mp3 5:29 full Cachoeira da Fumaça https://qualla.com/cachoeira-da-fumaca/ Photo credit r m, CC BY 2.0. A 340-metre waterfall in the Chapada Diamantina where the wind takes the river apart in mid-air, so that on most days the water never reaches the ground.

Read more: Cachoeira da Fumaça on Qualla

Image: r m | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/f/8/cachoeira-da-fumaca-wp/7jf8-cachoeira-da-fumaca-combined.mp3 4:39 full Monte Pascoal National Park https://qualla.com/monte-pascoal-national-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The hill Cabral's lookouts sighted on 22 April 1500 stands inside a national park that overlaps Pataxó land, and the park's real history is a long argument over who the forest belongs to.

Read more: Monte Pascoal National Park on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/h/0/monte-pascoal-national-park-wp/7jh0-monte-pascoal-national-park-combined.mp3 6:04 full Arraial d'Ajuda https://qualla.com/arraial-d-ajuda/ Photo credit HVL, CC BY 3.0. A clifftop beach village across the Buranhém from Porto Seguro, built on top of one of Brazil's earliest airfields and gathered around a church begun in 1550.

Read more: Arraial d'Ajuda on Qualla

Image: HVL | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/h/4/arraial-d-ajuda-wp/7jh4-arraial-d-ajuda-combined.mp3 4:23 full Pau Brasil National Park https://qualla.com/pau-brasil-national-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Nineteen thousand hectares of lowland Atlantic Forest inland from Porto Seguro, protecting the endangered tree that gave Brazil its name and Renaissance Europe its best red dye.

Read more: Pau Brasil National Park on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/h/4/pau-brasil-national-park-wp/7jh4-pau-brasil-national-park-combined.mp3 5:17 full Campo Bahia https://qualla.com/campo-bahia/ Fourteen brightly painted houses built in a Bahian fishing village as Germany's 2014 World Cup base, finished days before the team arrived and now running as a beach hotel that barely mentions it.

Read more: Campo Bahia on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/h/7/campo-bahia-wp/7jh7-campo-bahia-combined.mp3 4:21 full Una Biological Reserve https://qualla.com/una-biological-reserve/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. A strict-protection reserve in southern Bahia holding the largest wild population of the golden-headed lion tamarin, a monkey found nowhere on Earth but this stretch of Atlantic Forest.

Read more: Una Biological Reserve on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/k/1/una-biological-reserve-wp/7jk1-una-biological-reserve-combined.mp3 5:53 full Paraguaçu River https://qualla.com/paraguacu-river/ Photo credit Wille Marcel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Five hundred kilometres of Bahian river, of which boats can use forty - a waterway that carried cattle, sugar, tobacco and enslaved people, and now feeds the shellfish beds of Iguape Bay.

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Image: Wille Marcel | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/q/paraguacu-river-wp/7jsq-paraguacu-river-combined.mp3 5:30 full Bahia Museum of Art https://qualla.com/bahia-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Agecom Bahia from Bahia/Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Bahia's first museum, founded in 1918, now occupies a 1920s palace assembled partly from salvaged pieces of older buildings - a doorway from 1674, a staircase rail lifted from a ruined convent.

Read more: Bahia Museum of Art on Qualla

Image: Agecom Bahia from Bahia/Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/bahia-museum-of-art-wp/7jsw-bahia-museum-of-art-combined.mp3 5:20 full Battle of Itaparica https://qualla.com/battle-of-itaparica/ Photo credit Marinha do Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. In January 1823 a Portuguese fleet of forty-two vessels attacked an island militia in the Bay of All Saints, and lost - a three-day defence that helped decide whether Brazilian independence would hold in Bahia.

Read more: Battle of Itaparica on Qualla

Image: Marinha do Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/battle-of-itaparica-wp/7jsw-battle-of-itaparica-combined.mp3 5:13 full Grupo Gay da Bahia https://qualla.com/grupo-gay-da-bahia/ Photo credit Cramunhao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Founded in Salvador in 1980, Brazil's oldest surviving LGBTQ organisation began counting the country's murdered gay and trans people in 1982, because no government agency was doing it.

Read more: Grupo Gay da Bahia on Qualla

Image: Cramunhao | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/grupo-gay-da-bahia-wp/7jsw-grupo-gay-da-bahia-combined.mp3 5:40 full Itaparica https://qualla.com/itaparica/ The largest of the ninety-one islands in the Bay of All Saints, where sugar, whaling and Brazil's first steam engine met a three-day battle that helped decide the war for independence.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/itaparica-wk/7jsw-itaparica-combined.mp3 5:32 full Ladeira da Preguiça https://qualla.com/ladeira-da-preguica/ Photo credit elicrisko, CC BY 2.0. Salvador's Slope of Laziness was named by the people who watched enslaved porters haul sixty-kilo sacks up it — a joke that outlived them and became a stereotype about all of Bahia.

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Image: elicrisko | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/ladeira-da-preguica-wp/7jsw-ladeira-da-preguica-combined.mp3 4:18 full Liberdade https://qualla.com/liberdade-neighbourhood/ A cattle road renamed Freedom after the troops who won Bahia marched down it — and the Salvador neighbourhood that became the home address of Black Bahian cultural and political life.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/liberdade-neighbourhood-wp/7jsw-liberdade-neighbourhood-combined.mp3 5:53 full São Pedro Clock https://qualla.com/sao-pedro-clock/ Photo credit Jcornelius, CC BY-SA 4.0. Salvador demolished the São Pedro church in 1913 to push an avenue through; three years later the city's shop and office clerks paid for a cast-iron clock to stand where it had been.

Read more: São Pedro Clock on Qualla

Image: Jcornelius | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/sao-pedro-clock-wp/7jsw-sao-pedro-clock-combined.mp3 4:28 full Terreiro do Bate Folha https://qualla.com/terreiro-do-bate-folha/ A Candomblé Angola house founded in Salvador in 1916, whose congregation has kept fifteen and a half hectares of Atlantic Forest standing inside the city — and kept its faith through decades when holding a ceremony required buying a police licence.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/w/terreiro-do-bate-folha-wp/7jsw-terreiro-do-bate-folha-combined.mp3 5:36 full Candeias Oil Well (C-1) https://qualla.com/candeias-oil-well-c-1/ Photo credit Sucodefrutassp, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bahian well that turned Brazilian oil from a rumour into an industry, and gave Getúlio Vargas the stage for the campaign that created Petrobras.

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Image: Sucodefrutassp | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/s/x/candeias-oil-well-c-1-wp/7jsx-candeias-oil-well-c-1-combined.mp3 4:16 full Feira de Santana https://qualla.com/feira-de-santana/ Photo credit Paulomedford, CC BY-SA 3.0. A city of more than 600,000 that began as a place where cattle drovers stopped to trade, and has never stopped being a crossroads.

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Image: Paulomedford | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/u/6/feira-de-santana-wk/7ju6-feira-de-santana-combined.mp3 5:08 full Praia do Forte https://qualla.com/praia-do-forte/ A Bahian beach named for a fortified house that took seventy-three years to build, anchored an estate the size of a tenth of Brazil, and now stands in ruins above a sea-turtle sanctuary.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/u/b/praia-do-forte-wp/7jub-praia-do-forte-combined.mp3 5:01 full Mangue Seco https://qualla.com/mangue-seco/ A dune-backed fishing village of a couple hundred people at the top of the Bahian coast, made famous nationwide by a telenovela whose town was a stage set built a thousand kilometres away.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/v/q/mangue-seco-wp/7jvq-mangue-seco-combined.mp3 4:39 full Estância https://qualla.com/estancia/ Photo credit GLandovsky, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Sergipe town an emperor called the garden of his province, where street after street of Portuguese-tiled facades is still standing and slowly coming apart.

Read more: Estância on Qualla

Image: GLandovsky | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/j/v/r/estancia-wk/7jvr-estancia-combined.mp3 4:51 full Museum of the American Man https://qualla.com/museum-of-the-american-man/ Photo credit Vagner Carvalheiro from São Paulo, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. A museum in a small sertao town holds fifty years of excavation from Serra da Capivara — and the legacy of the woman who refused to leave until it was built.

Read more: Museum of the American Man on Qualla

Image: Vagner Carvalheiro from São Paulo, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/3/s/museum-of-the-american-man-wp/7n3s-museum-of-the-american-man-combined.mp3 5:36 full Pedra Furada https://qualla.com/pedra-furada/ Photo credit Diego Rego Monteiro, CC BY-SA 4.0. A rock shelter in Piaui holds either the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas or a pile of rocks that fell off a cliff — and after fifty years, archaeology still cannot agree which.

Read more: Pedra Furada on Qualla

Image: Diego Rego Monteiro | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/3/t/pedra-furada-wp/7n3t-pedra-furada-combined.mp3 6:14 full Serra da Capivara National Park https://qualla.com/serra-da-capivara-national-park/ In the thorn-scrub canyons of southeastern Piaui, painted figures dance across sandstone walls in one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric art anywhere on Earth.

Read more: Serra da Capivara National Park on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/3/w/serra-da-capivara-national-park-wp/7n3w-serra-da-capivara-national-park-combined.mp3 5:52 full Toca da Boa Vista https://qualla.com/toca-da-boa-vista/ Photo credit Original uploader was Dave Bunnell at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5. Brazil's longest cave was dissolved out of 600-million-year-old rock by acid made by microbes — and then filled with the bones of animals that no longer exist.

Read more: Toca da Boa Vista on Qualla

Image: Original uploader was Dave Bunnell at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/4/y/toca-da-boa-vista-wp/7n4y-toca-da-boa-vista-combined.mp3 5:02 full Petrolina https://qualla.com/petrolina/ Photo credit Giovane Carneiro, CC BY 2.0. In the one corner of Brazil's drought-stricken sertao that people move to rather than away from, irrigated vineyards and mango orchards feed supermarkets on two continents.

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Image: Giovane Carneiro | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/7/4/petrolina-wp/7n74-petrolina-combined.mp3 6:35 full Piauí https://qualla.com/piaui/ Photo credit Kiko Correia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Brazil's eleventh-largest state has 66 kilometres of coast, an inland capital drawn on paper in 1852, and a history that runs the wrong way - inland to outward, cattle before towns.

Read more: Piauí on Qualla

Image: Kiko Correia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/9/m/piaui-wp/7n9m-piaui-combined.mp3 6:06 full Caatinga https://qualla.com/caatinga/ Photo credit Exército Brasileiro from Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Brazil's thorn forest covers 912,529 square kilometres of the northeastern interior, holds 26 million people, exists nowhere else on Earth, and has about one percent of itself under full protection.

Read more: Caatinga on Qualla

Image: Exército Brasileiro from Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/e/u/caatinga-wp/7neu-caatinga-combined.mp3 5:23 full Araripe Geopark https://qualla.com/araripe-geopark/ Photo credit Paulohenrique.fotografias, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first UNESCO geopark in the Americas covers 3,796 square kilometres of southern Ceará, six towns, the world's densest concentration of pterosaur fossils, and a bird that breeds in a single square kilometre.

Read more: Araripe Geopark on Qualla

Image: Paulohenrique.fotografias | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/e/y/araripe-geopark-wp/7ney-araripe-geopark-combined.mp3 5:26 full Caldeirão de Santa Cruz do Deserto https://qualla.com/caldeirao-de-santa-cruz-do-deserto/ A thousand peasants built a cooperative farming community on the Chapada do Araripe under a Black lay holy man born to freed parents. In May 1937 the Brazilian state bombed it, and has never said where the dead were buried.

Read more: Caldeirão de Santa Cruz do Deserto on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/e/z/caldeirao-de-santa-cruz-do-deserto-wp/7nez-caldeirao-de-santa-cruz-do-deserto-combined.mp3 6:11 full Crato Formation https://qualla.com/crato-formation/ Photo credit Fabin et al., 2018, CC BY 4.0. A 113-million-year-old lake bed in Ceará that preserved insect wings, fish stomach contents and pterosaur crests in such detail that the fossils became worth stealing.

Read more: Crato Formation on Qualla

Image: Fabin et al., 2018 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/e/z/crato-formation-wp/7nez-crato-formation-combined.mp3 5:30 full Nova Olinda, Ceará https://qualla.com/nova-olinda-ceara/ Photo credit MATHIAS, M H from Guaratinguetá, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. A Cariri town of under 16,000 people where a museum, a library, a theatre and a cultural foundation are run by the local children — beneath a sandstone escarpment that UNESCO counts as a geopark.

Read more: Nova Olinda, Ceará on Qualla

Image: MATHIAS, M H from Guaratinguetá, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/e/z/nova-olinda-ceara-wp/7nez-nova-olinda-ceara-combined.mp3 5:37 full Oeiras, Piauí https://qualla.com/oeiras-piaui/ Photo credit GLandovsky, CC BY-SA 4.0. Piauí's first capital lost the seat of government to Teresina in 1852 and stopped growing at a capital's pace — which is precisely why its colonial center is still standing.

Read more: Oeiras, Piauí on Qualla

Image: GLandovsky | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/f/0/oeiras-piaui-wp/7nf0-oeiras-piaui-combined.mp3 4:55 full Bendegó Meteorite https://qualla.com/bendego-meteorite/ Photo credit Jorge Andrade, CC BY 2.0. A 5,360-kilogram block of iron that fell in the Bahian sertão, defeated an ox cart in 1785, crossed the caatinga on relaid rails over 277 days, and walked out of the 2018 National Museum fire without serious damage.

Read more: Bendegó Meteorite on Qualla

Image: Jorge Andrade | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/h/n/bendego-meteorite-wp/7nhn-bendego-meteorite-combined.mp3 5:31 full Canudos State Park https://qualla.com/canudos-state-park/ Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. A state park in the Bahian caatinga created in 1986 with an unusual purpose written into its decree: to make it impossible to forget the people killed here in 1897.

Read more: Canudos State Park on Qualla

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/h/p/canudos-state-park-wp/7nhp-canudos-state-park-combined.mp3 5:44 full War of Canudos https://qualla.com/war-of-canudos/ Photo credit Flávio de Barros, Public domain. Between 1896 and 1897 the young Brazilian Republic sent four military expeditions against a settlement of poor sertanejos in the Bahian backlands, and destroyed it almost entirely.

Read more: War of Canudos on Qualla

Image: Flávio de Barros | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/h/p/war-of-canudos-wp/7nhp-war-of-canudos-combined.mp3 6:10 full Sergipe https://qualla.com/sergipe/ Photo credit Tito Garcez, Public domain. Brazil's smallest state folds mangrove, sugar country and hard thorn-scrub sertão into a strip of coast the Tupi named for its crabs.

Read more: Sergipe on Qualla

Image: Tito Garcez | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/j/7/sergipe-wp/7nj7-sergipe-combined.mp3 5:22 full Aracaju https://qualla.com/aracaju/ Sergipe's capital did not grow into its shape — an engineer drew it as a chessboard in 1855, and the grid still runs straight down to the river.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/j/9/aracaju-wk/7nj9-aracaju-combined.mp3 4:59 full Penedo https://qualla.com/penedo/ A colonial port stacked up a bluff above the lower São Francisco, where ocean-going ships once tied up and gilded rococo churches still look out over the water.

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]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/j/v/penedo-wk/7njv-penedo-combined.mp3 5:49 full Raso da Catarina https://qualla.com/raso-da-catarina/ Photo credit Steff Suconic, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eroded sandstone badlands in the driest corner of Bahia — country that sheltered the survivors of Canudos, then Lampião's cangaceiros, and still shelters the Pankararé and one of the rarest macaws on Earth.

Read more: Raso da Catarina on Qualla

Image: Steff Suconic | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/k/8/raso-da-catarina-wp/7nk8-raso-da-catarina-combined.mp3 6:41 full Paulo Afonso Hydroelectric Complex https://qualla.com/paulo-afonso-hydroelectric-complex/ Photo credit Mkossick, CC BY-SA 3.0. Five power plants and three dams took the greatest waterfall in northeastern Brazil and turned it into 4,279.6 megawatts — the cataract now appears only when the spillway gates are opened.

Read more: Paulo Afonso Hydroelectric Complex on Qualla

Image: Mkossick | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/k/f/paulo-afonso-hydroelectric-complex-wp/7nkf-paulo-afonso-hydroelectric-complex-combined.mp3 6:47 full Piranhas https://qualla.com/piranhas-alagoas/ Photo credit Wellber Drayton, Public domain. A whitewashed river town wedged into the canyons of the lower São Francisco, once the head of navigation, the start of a railway to nowhere, and the place where the cangaço came to a public end.

Read more: Piranhas on Qualla

Image: Wellber Drayton | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/m/1/piranhas-alagoas-wp/7nm1-piranhas-alagoas-combined.mp3 5:08 full Arapiraca https://qualla.com/arapiraca/ Photo credit Jéssica Mirtiany, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tobacco made Arapiraca and then unmade it; the second city of Alagoas rebuilt itself on a street market and a stubborn talent for creating jobs.

Read more: Arapiraca on Qualla

Image: Jéssica Mirtiany | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/m/b/arapiraca-wp/7nmb-arapiraca-combined.mp3 5:10 full Alagoas https://qualla.com/alagoas/ Brazil's second-smallest state gave the republic its first two presidents, sheltered the country's greatest act of self-liberation, and still runs on sugarcane and the sea.

Read more: Alagoas on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/m/c/alagoas-wp/7nmc-alagoas-combined.mp3 5:05 full São Francisco River https://qualla.com/sao-francisco-river/ Photo credit Fotos GOVBA from Bahia/Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Brazil calls it the river of national integration: 2,914 kilometres of water that carries the wet south into the dry Northeast and has been fought over, dammed, worshipped and rerouted ever since.

Read more: São Francisco River on Qualla

Image: Fotos GOVBA from Bahia/Brasil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/n/h/sao-francisco-river-wp/7nnh-sao-francisco-river-combined.mp3 4:49 full Palmares (quilombo) https://qualla.com/palmares-quilombo/ Photo credit Frans Post, Public domain. For most of the seventeenth century, a self-governing confederation of people who had freed themselves held the palm-covered hills of Pernambuco against everything Portugal and the Dutch could send at it.

Read more: Palmares (quilombo) on Qualla

Image: Frans Post | Public domain

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/7/palmares-quilombo-wp/7nq7-palmares-quilombo-combined.mp3 6:51 full Serra da Barriga https://qualla.com/serra-da-barriga/ Photo credit Mirla Dâmaso, CC BY-SA 4.0. The long green ridge above União dos Palmares held Macaco, the principal settlement of Palmares - and it is now Brazil's most visited site of Black memory.

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Image: Mirla Dâmaso | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/7/serra-da-barriga-wp/7nq7-serra-da-barriga-combined.mp3 5:30 full Maceió https://qualla.com/maceio/ Photo credit André Lage Freitas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Alagoas' capital is named after a lagoon that keeps disappearing - a city of green water, sugar-money history, and a lagoon-and-ocean geography that shaped everything about it.

Read more: Maceió on Qualla

Image: André Lage Freitas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/9/maceio-wp/7nq9-maceio-combined.mp3 5:32 full The Sinking of Maceió https://qualla.com/sinking-of-maceio/ Photo credit Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 4.0. Cracks appeared in Pinheiro after heavy rain in February 2018. Five neighbourhoods of a Brazilian state capital have since been emptied of tens of thousands of people.

Read more: The Sinking of Maceió on Qualla

Image: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/9/sinking-of-maceio-wp/7nq9-sinking-of-maceio-combined.mp3 5:39 full São Miguel dos Milagres https://qualla.com/sao-miguel-dos-milagres/ Photo credit Pedro Belasco from Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. A village of eight thousand on the Alagoas coast, named for a fisherman's healed wound, now the quiet heart of the Rota Ecológica and a place where manatees are returned to the sea.

Read more: São Miguel dos Milagres on Qualla

Image: Pedro Belasco from Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/g/sao-miguel-dos-milagres-wk/7nqg-sao-miguel-dos-milagres-combined.mp3 5:06 full Maragogi https://qualla.com/maragogi/ Photo credit Alessandra Chanquet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Twice a day the tide falls far enough to let you stand six kilometres out to sea, in the reef pools that turned a quiet Alagoas town into the Northeast's best-known snorkelling destination.

Read more: Maragogi on Qualla

Image: Alessandra Chanquet | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/q/u/maragogi-wk/7nqu-maragogi-combined.mp3 5:06 full Tamandaré https://qualla.com/tamandare/ A reef-sheltered stretch of Pernambuco's south coast that gave its name to an admiral, to a barony, and eventually to the patron of the Brazilian Navy.

Read more: Tamandaré on Qualla

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/r/n/tamandare-wk/7nrn-tamandare-combined.mp3 5:37 full Porto de Galinhas https://qualla.com/porto-de-galinhas/ Photo credit Dandv, CC BY-SA 4.0. Brazil's most-voted beach carries a cheerful name that came out of the illegal slave trade: word that new chickens had arrived at the port.

Read more: Porto de Galinhas on Qualla

Image: Dandv | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/r/p/porto-de-galinhas-wk/7nrp-porto-de-galinhas-combined.mp3 5:20 full Serra Talhada https://qualla.com/serra-talhada/ Photo credit A. Júnior, CC BY 2.0. A working city of ninety thousand in the Pernambuco sertão that happens to be the birthplace of Lampião — and has spent nearly a century deciding what to do about it.

Read more: Serra Talhada on Qualla

Image: A. Júnior | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/s/f/serra-talhada-wp/7nsf-serra-talhada-combined.mp3 5:49 full Triunfo https://qualla.com/triunfo/ Photo credit Allan Patrick from Natal, Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. The highest town in Pernambuco, where the sertão turns cold, wet and green, and a 1922 cinema has been running long enough to start an argument about records.

Read more: Triunfo on Qualla

Image: Allan Patrick from Natal, Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/7/n/s/g/triunfo-wk/7nsg-triunfo-combined.mp3 5:49 full Statue of Father Cícero https://qualla.com/statue-of-father-cicero/ Photo credit Fabiobarros, CC BY-SA 4.0. A thirty-metre concrete priest stands over Juazeiro do Norte, built with imported cement to honour a man the Church had suspended and the sertão had already canonised on its own.

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Image: Fabiobarros | CC BY-SA 4.0

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