Entering Palmeira dos Índios From the East From Southeast

Palmeira dos Índios lies on the border between the moist agreste zone and the dry sertão. The agreste is characterized by hills and green. The sertão by isolated hills and vast relatively flat expanses of dry caatinga, thorny and often poisonous low forest. In this view you see the last of the hills of the agreste lying north and east of the town. Zoom out on the view on this page or look in Google Earth and you will see the sharp difference: green to tones of brown. This stretch of road actually lies in a "bay" of dry sertão to the south and immediate east of the town.

As you follow BR-316 through the town you enter a "point" of the more moist zone and then quickly exit into dry country. The 2007 rainy season was unusually wet in the sertão and it was greener than I have ever seen it, even to standing water in low spots making marshes filled with wading birds and ducks.