Serra da Barriga
After lunch , the road climbs the serra to the Parque Memorial Quilombo dos Palmares, a short drive reaching the plateau around 2:00 PM. The park is open daily from 8 AM to 5 PM, with free entry.
The Serra da Barriga, tombado by IPHAN in 1985 and recognised as Mercosul cultural heritage in 2017, is where the Quilombo dos Palmares stood for nearly a century: the largest and most durable free community formed by escaped enslaved people in the Americas. The quilombo emerged around 1597 and at its height sheltered between twenty and thirty thousand people across a territory of roughly 200 square kilometres straddling the Pernambuco-Alagoas border. Its seat — the mocambo called Cerca Real dos Macacos, on this ridge — was defended by palisades, ditches, and steep terrain, and withstood repeated Portuguese colonial and Dutch attacks before it was finally destroyed by the bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho in 1694. Zumbi, its last great leader, was killed on 20 November 1695 — a date now marked nationally as the Dia da Consciência Negra.
The park reconstructs the quilombo on the actual ground where it stood. The structures are built in pau-a-pique with thatch roofs and beaten earth floors, with inscriptions in Kimbundu and Yoruba, and include the Onjó de Farinha (casa de farinha), the Onjó Cruzambê (campo santo), the Oxile das Ervas (terreiro das ervas), indigenous ocas, and the Muxima de Palmares — described as the heart of the quilombo, where its leaders gathered. Audio points throughout narrate daily life in four languages. Three mirantes — the atalaias named Acaiene, Acaiuba, and Toculo, after the sons of Ganga Zumba — look out over the forested ridge and the cane valleys below. The view from up here, knowing what happened on this ground, is worth the climb alone.
You can drive to the entrance rather than ascending on foot, and there is parking.