Qualla: Maranhão https://qualla.com/maranhao en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Maranhão https://qualla.com/maranhao Maranhão: Introduction https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Marcus Guimarães from Nova Friburgo, Brazil, CC BY 2.0. In São Luís, reggae plays from speakers bolted to colonial balconies. The rhythm is unmistakable, but the setting is not Jamaica. It is a UNESCO World Heritage city on an island in northeastern Brazil, where the music arrived by ship in the 1970s, stuck, and became the soundtrack of an entire state. Maranhão has a Caribbean accent in a Portuguese frame. It has the second longest coastline in Brazil, and the only desert in the world filled with lagoons. It also has Guarana Jesus, a soda that tastes unmistakably like bubble gum.

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Image: Marcus Guimarães from Nova Friburgo, Brazil | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Maranhão: The Dunes That Fill With Water https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Iain and Sarah from London, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Lençóis Maranhenses are among the strangest landscapes on Earth. From the air, they look like bedsheets laid across the coast, which is exactly what lençóis means in Portuguese. White sand dunes roll for hundreds of square kilometers east of São Luís, but the twist is the wat...

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Image: Iain and Sarah from London, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-the-dunes-that-fill-with-water.mp3 0:06 2 full Maranhão: Colonial São Luís, Afro-Brazilian Soul https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Nando1462 - Fernando Santos Cunha Filho, CC BY-SA 4.0. The state capital sits on São Luís Island, founded by the French in 1612 as Equinoctial France. The Portuguese drove them out in 1615, the Dutch held the island from 1641 to 1644, and the Portuguese won it back for good. The layered history left São Luís with a historic center of...

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Image: Nando1462 - Fernando Santos Cunha Filho | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-colonial-s-o-lu-s-afro-brazilian-soul.mp3 0:06 3 full Maranhão: Micareta, Carnival Out of Season https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Etore.Santos, Public domain. Maranhenses love a party enough to invent one. The Açaí-Folia Micareta is one of the largest off-season carnivals in northeastern Brazil, a second helping of revelry months after the official February carnival has ended. Other cities keep their own rhythms. Imperatriz, the state'...

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Image: Etore.Santos | Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-micareta-carnival-out-of-season.mp3 0:06 4 full Maranhão: The Parnaíba Delta and Beyond https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Otávio Nogueira from Fortaleza, BR, CC BY 2.0. At Maranhão's eastern border, the Parnaíba River meets the Atlantic in a delta formed of islands, lagoons, dunes, and mangroves. It is one of only three open-sea deltas in the Americas. Ilha do Caju, a private nature reserve on one of the delta islands, shelters rare birds and at...

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Image: Otávio Nogueira from Fortaleza, BR | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-the-parna-ba-delta-and-beyond.mp3 0:06 5 full Maranhão: Practical Rules of the Road https://qualla.com/maranhao/ Photo credit Fernando Santos Cunha Filho, CC BY 3.0. Marechal Cunha Machado International Airport lies 13 kilometers from central São Luís, handling the bulk of Maranhão's air traffic since international flights began in 2004. Renato Moreira Airport serves Imperatriz in the west. Highways BR-010 and BR-230 cross the state, though t...

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Image: Fernando Santos Cunha Filho | CC BY 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/y/z/s/maranhao-wk/6yzs-maranh-o-practical-rules-of-the-road.mp3 0:06 6 full