Cane mills
Traditional sugar.
Josampaio — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Fora do Eixo — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Miguel Martins — CC BY 3.0 · Pasparal — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Fora do Eixo — CC BY-SA 2.0
Barbalha is a city of about 75,000 people in the Cariri region of southern Ceará, some 504 kilometres from Fortaleza, near Crato and Juazeiro do Norte at the foot of the Araripe plateau. The Kariri people lived along the Salamanca stream before expeditions arrived in the seventeenth century, and that encounter left a deep mark on local culture, especially in the tales of folk creatures still told today. The city grew with sugar cane, earning the nickname «land of the green cane fields». It still has most of the region's working rapadura mills, which turn cane juice into traditional blocks of brown sugar, and some can be visited. Green countryside and springs on the plateau's slope surround it, making it a good outing from Crato or Juazeiro.
Traditional sugar.
Springs and countryside.
Kariri heritage.
Barbalha, Cariri region, southern Ceará state
Blocks of brown sugar made from boiled cane juice.