Lençóis Maranhenses National Park
— — a desert that fills with rain.
Not only on a wall.
“A field of white sand dunes on the Atlantic coast of Maranhão, fifteen hundred square kilometres of them, set with shallow blue and green lagoons that appear in the rainy months and slowly evaporate again before the next year. The rain falls inland, runs north under the sand, surfaces between the dunes. By August the water is at its highest and the wind has not yet flattened the ridges.
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park covers about 1,550 square kilometres along the Atlantic coast of Maranhão state, in northeastern Brazil. The federal government created the park on 2 June 1981 to protect the dune field and its seasonal lagoons. The dunes, formed by sand carried in from the Parnaíba and Preguiças rivers and reworked by the southeast trade winds, reach heights of around 40 metres. The town of Barreirinhas, on the Preguiças River, is the main entry point for visitors, about 270 kilometres east of São Luís.
The lagoons are rain-fed, not connected to the sea. Heavy rains fall inland from January through June, drain north under the dune field, and surface in the troughs between dunes once the local water table rises. Annual rainfall in the region runs around 1,600 millimetres. By July the lagoons are at their fullest; Lagoa Azul and Lagoa Bonita, the two named circuits near Barreirinhas, are reliably swimmable through September. By December most have evaporated again.
Most visits start from Barreirinhas, about 270 kilometres east of São Luís by paved road. Local operators run 4x4 tours into the dunes along two main circuits — Lagoa Azul, roughly two and a half hours into the park, and Lagoa Bonita, slightly closer. The high-water months of July through September are the working season for swimming. The park is administered by ICMBio, the federal conservation agency, with a small entry fee and a network of marked routes.