Lençois Maranhenses - Les lacs de sable

The dunes stretching as far as the eye can see north of Sao Luis may remind you of the Sahara, but this mirage-like place is not a desert. It is the Lençois Maranhenses, a string of little-known Brazilian lakes.
Far from any urban areas, too isolated and unpredictable to have been developed for mass tourism, this magical environment has only just emerged on the scientific radar. And what science is teaching us is astonishing.
We are about to discover that a hostile environment, where temperatures can reach 45°C in the dry season and nutrients are scarce, can still be conducive to life. Obviously, it is not the teeming life of the nearby Amazon, but a cyclical and secretive life that has adapted perfectly to alternating scarcity and excess.
In this exceptional environment, a veritable ecological treasure according to the scientists we met, plants, animals, and humans appear and disappear with the rhythm of the water.