Chapada Diamantina

Plateaus & HighlandsBahia,Brazil

A Brazilian plateau of flat-topped mountains cut into canyons and blue grottoes, trekked for days, with a 340-metre waterfall that turns to spray before landing.

September·Peaking now

May–Sep

Dry season and the classic window: cool clear days firm the trails for Vale do Pati and the Fumaça clifftop, and the mesa views run unobstructed. Nights on the high ground turn cold and the rivers drop to their easiest crossings.

Year-round The flat-topped mesas, canyons and flooded caves are here year-round. What the seasons change is how much water comes over the falls, how firm the long trails run underfoot, and how clear the midday sky is.

Chapada Diamantina is a plateau of flat-topped mountains in the interior of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, cut into canyons, caves and grottoes of blue water, trekked for days between table mountains, with a waterfall of 340 metres that turns to spray before it lands. The plateau is old sandstone lifted and eroded into mesas, and the town at its edge, Lençóis, boomed in the nineteenth century on diamonds, hard black stones sold as industrial drilling grit, before the mines gave out. The classic walk is the Vale do Pati, two or three days through the plateau's most famous valley, sleeping in the farmhouses of families who stayed on when the diamonds went, between mesas that glow orange at the end of the day; the short climb is Morro do Pai Inácio, a landmark mesa near the road, up a steep track to a flat top with the whole plateau spread around it at sunset. Most of the park is campo rupestre, rocky highland grassland of tough, fire-adapted plants, many found nowhere else. The water is the plateau's other colour. Poço Azul and Poço Encantado are flooded caves of water so clear that fallen tree trunks and boulders on the floor 65 metres down stay in plain sight, and from about April to September, on clear days, a shaft of midday sun slips into them and the minerals throw it back electric blue; Poço Azul is the one you may enter, floating on the surface and looking straight down. In the Marimbus wetlands, the Bahian Pantanal, a dugout canoe is poled through a maze of flooded channels and water plants where herons and caimans move among the reeds and the still water mirrors the distant mesas. The Cachoeira da Fumaça, the smoke waterfall, is reached by a climb from the Vale do Capão to the clifftop, where you lie flat at the lip and look straight down 340 metres at water that never reaches the ground. Chapada Diamantina is a plateau that ran out of diamonds, and the water was worth more.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Both blue pools lie outside the park — each is a long 4x4 day out of Lençóis, and Poço Encantado is look-only while Poço Azul is the one you can swim in.
Trails are long, exposed and often unmarked — take a local guide, sturdy shoes and more water than feels necessary; the dry-season heat and open ridges dehydrate you quickly.
The foot of Cachoeira da Fumaça is a two-day trek — the route down the valley and back cannot be done in a day, and the Vale do Capão guides' association controls access.

Things to do

1
Trek the Vale do Pati
Spend two or three days walking Chapada's most famous valley, sleeping in family farmhouses between the table mountains. The route fords clear rivers, passes hidden waterfalls and climbs to ridge-top viewpoints, crossing the gerais — rocky campo rupestre grassland dotted with fire-hardy shrubs and everlasting flowers. It is done entirely on foot with a guide.
2
Catch sunset from Morro do Pai Inácio
Take the short, steep climb up this landmark mesa for the classic view over the plateau. As the sun drops, the flat-topped mountains stretch to the horizon and the bare rock turns warm gold — the most photographed moment in the park.
3
Float in the blue water of Poço Azul
Poço Azul is the flooded cave you are allowed into, and you float on the surface looking straight down at sunken trunks and boulders on the floor. Divers have lifted more than four thousand fossil bones out of this pool, among them a complete skeleton of a giant ground sloth. Come near midday in the dry months.
4
Canoe the Marimbus wetlands
Paddle a dugout canoe through the Marimbus, a maze of flooded channels and water plants often called the 'Bahian Pantanal.' Herons and caimans move among the reeds, and the still water mirrors the distant mesas as your guide poles you slowly through.
5
Hike to Cachoeira da Fumaça
Climb the trail from Vale do Capão to the clifftop above Cachoeira da Fumaça, then lie flat at the lip and look straight down 340 metres. Wind funnelling up the valley lifts the falling water back against the rock, so for much of the year nothing at all reaches the pool below.