Guides are mandatory here, and they are the only practical way to read the park. The formations carry names given by the people who have walked among them for generations — the Elephant, Pedra Brasil, the Head of Dom Pedro — and the resemblances are the kind you either see immediately or never see at all. As of December 2017, a guide started at around R$25 for three hours; the longer circuit taking in cities two, five and seven ran to about R$80. Walking or camping in the backcountry without a guide is discouraged in the firmest available terms, including by an armed guard at the gate. The park is small enough that this is less restrictive than it sounds.

Sete Cidades became a national park on 8 June 1961, by decree 50,744, signed by President Jânio Quadros during his brief and chaotic term in office. The stated reason was archaeological: the park holds prehistoric rock paintings and inscriptions, and those were what justified federal protection. Most visitors, then and now, arrive for the rocks instead and treat the paintings as a bonus — a mismatch between the paperwork and the experience that has persisted for more than sixty years. The protected area covers roughly 6,300 hectares, split between two municipalities: Piracuruca holds about three-quarters of it, Brasileira the remainder. ICMBio, Brazil's federal conservation institute, administers it as an IUCN Category II park.

The park's less photogenic function is hydrological. This is a predominantly dry region, and the formations shelter and conserve water resources that the surrounding landscape does not have in abundance. The vegetation reflects the position: caatinga, the thorny semi-arid scrub of the Brazilian northeast, meeting babaçu palm savanna and zones of contact between savanna, arid savanna and seasonal forest. That patchwork supports more wildlife than the bare stone suggests. Two of the park's residents are formally listed as threatened — the ocelot, *Leopardus pardalis mitis*, and the puma, *Puma concolor greeni*. Both are seen rarely and heard about often.

Rain falls from January through June, heaviest between March and May. The wet months are in some ways the better ones: temperatures drop, and the wildlife becomes far more active and more visible. They are also the months in which a day can be erased by a downpour arriving as a solid wall. The dry half of the year is reliable and hot, with the stone throwing back heat well into the evening. There is no perfect answer, only a trade — comfort and certainty on one side, cooler air and more animals on the other.

The nearest towns of any size are Piripiri and Piracuruca, each about 25 kilometres out, and the standard approach is a taxi or mototaxi from one of them; a Piripiri taxi that included the circuit inside the park ran about R$150 in December 2017. The cheaper option is Brasileira, a small town some nine kilometres from the entrance, close enough to walk. One hotel stands inside the park and another just outside, with camping available at the hotel for a token fee. The visitors' centre sells soft drinks and refills water bottles, which in this climate is the more valuable service. There is nowhere else inside the park to buy anything, so the practical advice is old and simple: carry your lunch, and eat it somewhere with a view of a wall that was never built.