Seridó

The Seridó is the RN inland — caatinga, reservoirs, highlands and colonial towns. In April 2022 it was designated a UNESCO Global Geopark, with 21 official geosites that tell 600 million years of geological history, plus prehistoric rupestrian inscriptions, former scheelite mines and the reservoirs that sustained the cotton cycle. Caicó, the symbolic capital, hosts the Festa de Sant'Ana in July — one of Brazil's largest Catholic festivals — and the bobbin-lace embroidery tradition.

The food is sertão food: sun-dried beef with cassava, coalho cheese grilled over open flame, bottled butter, buriti sweets. The towns — Caicó, Currais Novos, Acari, Parelhas, Carnaúba dos Dantas — preserve 19th-century streetscapes and the slow hospitality that has been lost on the coast.