July 20

Caatinga vegetation and site of bones

Pousada -- Teatro Nova Jerusalem, Fazenda Nova
I rose at 5:30 am and took a long hike around the grounds. It was surprisingly cold outside, needed my sweatshirt. The hotel is situated in a compound that sports several large stages ( I counted 8 but it may be more) for the staging of the passion play. Next to each stage there is a sign listing the scenes of the passion play to be played on this particular stage. Quite interesting.

After breakfast we were stuffed into two jeeps 12 or more people per jeep; every nook and nanny of the jeep was put to good use including the roof which held about four people each. We drove into the caatinga -- comprised of vegetation of the arid region of the Brazilian shield. We were lucky to have been here at the end of the rainy season since a lot of plants were at the verge of blooming.  Prrdominant plants are cation types of cactus as well as other drought-resistant, often thorny plants.

The drive and subsequent hike culminated on a granitic outcrop of the pre-Cambrian Brazilian Shield. This shield is about 6,000 sq km in size, quite a huge batholith showing up  outcrop on various mountain and hill tops in the region. Since the Brazilian shield was not subjected to the continental glaciation the Canadian shield experienced, it shows more fluvial and other water-based eerosional features such as hills and valleys with the occasional granitic outcrop or dome.
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Striking erosional features were 1. Sheet erosion of the granite and 2. nahmas, smallish round indentures into the rock which grow with age. In the largest one of these farmers found fossilized bones from animals of the last ice age: giant ground sloth, giant armadillo, mastodon and the like. It appears that these animals retreated from the waters to this area but their existence did not coincide with that of humans. Differing dating methods of teeth enamel, bones and cementing material revealed that there was a striking age  difference with that of the cementing agent being considerably later (30,000??). The geologists and paleontologists of the university in Recife have been busy excavating, putting together, analysing and dating the bones resulting in several master theses as well as ph.d. dissertations.

Todays drive occurs along leeward side of the mountain of the Borborema Highlands which adjacent to the Borborema Oiedmont. This is the aa of agreste, a dry transitional region. Since we are driving along the lee side it is actually  is drier than would be expected.. The south  side shows more forested areas than the windward side. This is a typical Windward, leeward effect here.

In terms of Human occupation it is the most unsettled area of the region. Not much agriculture, more clothing industry which started as cottage industry and then blossomed to a relatIvely big industry. Also, there is a combination of rural and ecotourism e.g. activities as hiking, rock climbing etc.

We visited an outlet store which housed a variety of small not-so-much known brand stores representing the area's efforts at fashion making. Some of the t-shirts and dresses were really nice, others not so. Appantly it is common for a big international brand to buy a lot of the clothes of a certain small-scale clothes maker and just exchange the label.