Piranhas

Piranhas sits in a bowl of rock on the left bank of the Sao Francisco, and its houses are painted in flat pastel colours that stack up the slope above the water. It grew as the terminus of the Paulo Afonso railway, built in the 1880s to carry goods around the falls upstream, and the station survives with rolling stock as a museum; the line itself closed decades ago. The town is the standard base for boat trips into the Xingo canyon a short way upriver. It also carries the cangaco story: Lampiao and his band were killed at Angico in the hills nearby in 1938, and their severed heads were displayed on the steps of the town hall here, which a small museum documents without softening it.

What you actually see

• Pastel houses stacked on rock - the town rising from the river bank.
• An abandoned railway - the 1880s station and rolling stock as a museum.
• Boats to Xingo - the canyon trips leaving from the waterfront.
• The cangaco record - the museum documenting the 1938 killings at Angico.

When to go

May to November. Two days.

Honest expectations

The town is small and a day covers it; the canyon trip is the reason to stay a night. Heat in the rock bowl is intense in the afternoon. Accommodation is simple. Angico is reached by rough track and needs a guide.

Nearby

Xingo canyon is upriver; Penedo is downstream toward the mouth.