Morro do Pai Inácio

Chapada Diamantina is an enormous national park in Brazil, a little larger than the state of Maryland. It consists of mountainous plateaus edged by cliffs, some of which are 2,000 feet high. Trekkers in the area can see vistas of wide-open valleys, waterfalls, swimming holes, and underwater lagoons the color of sapphires.

From Lençois, a town that serves as the most popular gateway to the park, it’s about a half-hour drive to the trailhead for Morro Do Pai Inácio (Hill of Father Ignatius), where a 0.3-mile hike takes you to one of the park’s most scenic overlooks. (The trail has recently been upgraded with some stairs and a handrail.) Particularly popular at sunset, the top offers sweeping views of the surrounding valleys and cliffs, which resemble the mesas of the American Southwest, but with a coating of green. From here you can see the nearby Vale do Capão, and the striking hills of Morro do Camelo and Morrão.

The outlook is associated with one of the area’s oldest legends: Long ago, a slave had a romantic affair with the daughter of a local farmer—in some versions of the story she is a colonel’s wife—and she became pregnant. Her lover, worried about racist retaliation, absconded to the mountain and jumped off of it with an open umbrella, never to be seen again.