and this is what the caatinga looks like. unforgiving! it is bone dry, and its quite something that these skinny shrubs manage to grow so tall. the cactus are just cool. a scrape on either the shrub or cactus is quite an obvious sensation, and not exactly pleasant. i was told that in some spots of this semi desert rain falls once in a blue year making the landscape virtually unhabitable outside the immediate river banks.

and it was in this is the land where lampiao and his gang lived while fighting a gorilla war with the federal troops sent to support the rich landowners whose ire he had aroused. in some romantic accounts lampiao was a hero of the poor and dispossed, a man fighting for the honour of his family, bent on revenge for a death. and maria bonita was one of his fighter, capangas, a lady of equal courage and ferocity according to the legend.

http://www.brazilbrazil.com/lampiao.html