The unknown and otherworldly landscape of Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park
CNN
As a visitor sets eyes on the brilliant pools of paradise that characterize Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park for the first time, it wouldn't be out of line to assume hallucination.
(CNN) — As a visitor sets eyes on the brilliant pools of paradise that characterize Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park for the first time, it wouldn't be out of line to assume hallucination.
Dazzling blue lagoons numbering in the thousands hide below towering sand dunes draped across 598 square miles. Every single one is inviting -- scratch that, begging! -- travelers to toil across the sand and hurl themselves into the beautiful abyss. At least one imagined version of heaven surely unfolds in a scene similar to this.
Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park may not seem real to the uninitiated, but this phenomenal park, a direct shot 1,662 miles north of Rio de Janeiro in Maranhão state, is neither a mirage nor a movie set. It is at once one of the world's most dramatic sandscapes -- otherworldly dunes only broken up by cerulean lagoons that pepper the sandy hills between March and September -- and one of the world's least beaten paths.
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