Lenis Maranhenses National Park

The Lenis Maranhenses National Park (Parque Nacional dos Lenis Maranhenses) is located in Maranho state, in northeastern Brazil, just east of the Baa de So Jos. It is an area of low, flat, occasionally flooded land, overlaid with large, discrete sand dunes. It encompasses roughly 1,500km2 (580sqmi), and despite abundant rain, supports almost no vegetation.The area was converted into a National Park due to its amazing scenery on June 2, 1981. It was featured in the Brazilian film The House of Sand. Kadhal Anukkal, a song from an Indian film Endhiran starred by Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was also shot here.

Composed of large, white, sweeping dunes, at first glance Lenis Maranhenses looks like an archetypal desert. In fact it isn't actually a desert. Lying just outside the Amazon Basin, the region is subject to a regular rain season during the beginning of the year. The rains cause a peculiar phenomenon: fresh water collects in the valleys between sand dunes, spotting the desert with blue and green lagoons that reach their fullest between July and September. The lagoons have large numbers of fish that arrive when the lagoons are at their fullest after July, which causes them to be interconnected to rivers such as the Rio Negro. Also, one species of fish, the wolf fish or tiger fish (Hoplias malabaricus) stays dormant in the mud and moist areas after the majority of the water has evaporated, re-emerging during the next rainy season.

The national park status serves only as a means of protecting the area's ecology; consequently many people are park residents, as is also the case with nearby Jericoacoara. The inhabitants of the park work primarily as fishermen during the rainy season. During the dry season, many leave for neighboring regions to work small plots of land.

According to local lore, the region was inhabited by Caet Indians, who woke up one day to find their town covered by sand.

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