Mucugê has a cemetery that nobody expects. Walk up from the main street and you find the so-called Byzantine cemetery, a field of small white chapel-shaped tombs on a dusty hillside, a legacy of the diamond miners who made this town rich in the nineteenth century and then left it half-empty when the stones ran out. It is a quiet, slightly eerie place at the end of a long day on the road.
The town sits on the southern side of the Chapada Diamantina, in the high plateau country of Bahia. The roads leading in from Lençóis and Ibicoara run through rolling, rocky grassland, with sandstone scarps standing off on either hand and the occasional line of palms in a creek bed. There is very little traffic, and the surface is mostly decent asphalt that has been patched with enthusiasm rather than skill. Watch for potholes at the edges of the villages, for dogs, and for the way a bend can end in a patch of sand blown across the tarmac.
Mucugê is also known for the sempre-vivas, the everlasting flowers that grow on the plateau and were once gathered and sold in bunches. Picking them is now restricted, and the town has a protected park to conserve them, so please photograph rather than pick. On a clear morning the light on the stone and the flowers is as good as anything on the whole loop. The nights are cool for the tropics, since the plateau is well above the lowlands, so a thin jacket is useful even in summer.
This is a small place with no larger town close by. Do not count on finding fuel at any particular hour, and fill up in Lençóis or at the next town you pass before you commit to the stretch. For food, expect modest local restaurants serving rice, beans, manioc and grilled meat, and a cup of strong coffee. The charm of Mucugê is how little it does to be charming: it is a mining town that has quietly become a place to stop.