Chapada dos Veadeiros

Plateaus & HighlandsGoiás,Brazil

Tiered waterfalls you swim below and moon-like quartz basins on one of Earth's oldest exposed surfaces, guarding the purest stretch of Brazil's ancient savanna.

September·Edge of season

Aug–Oct

The dry deepens: the pools warm to their most swimmable and the long routes still run. But the grass dries to tinder, and wildfire smoke can build through August and September, closing the park in some years. Seasonal falls run dry until October's first storms.

Year-round The ancient cerrado savanna plateau, its tiered waterfalls and the moon-like Vale da Lua are here year-round under star-filled skies; the dry season, May to October, is the easiest time to walk.

Chapada dos Veadeiros is a plateau of quartz rock in the state of Goiás, in central Brazil, where waterfalls drop in tiers into pools you swim in and the rivers have polished the stone into basins that look like the moon, on one of the oldest exposed surfaces on Earth. The rock is quartzite laid down nearly two billion years ago, and it is why the water is so clear: the rivers run over crystal rather than mud, and the pools at the foot of the falls are cold and almost transparent. The centrepiece is the Saltos do Rio Preto, twin drops of 80 and 120 metres into a canyon, reached on a trail through the park from the village of São Jorge; below the falls you wade into pools where the quartz-filtered water runs clear over pale stone, and the trail continues down into the canyons of the Rio Preto between steep quartzite walls. Just outside the park the São Miguel river has worn the grey rock of the Vale da Lua into a field of smooth hollows and basins, walked across barefoot in the heat. The plateau guards the purest stretch of the Cerrado, the ancient savanna of central Brazil, a landscape of twisted trees, tall grass and flowering plants cleared across most of its range for soy and cattle; here it is intact, with maned wolves, giant anteaters and rheas on the plains and a burst of flowers after the first rains. The name means plateau of the deer hunters, after the men who once tracked wild deer across these highlands with dogs. In the remote valleys around the park live the Kalunga, the largest quilombo territory in Brazil, communities descended from Africans who escaped slavery and hid here two centuries ago. The plateau lies near the fourteenth parallel south, a line said to pass through Machu Picchu, and the claim has given the place a long mystical reputation and a village of crystal shops. Chapada dos Veadeiros is a waterfall park on a two-billion-year-old floor, and the water is the clearest in Brazil.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Start the waterfall hikes at opening, around 8am — the park caps daily numbers, and the long loops to the Saltos do Rio Preto and the Cânions take most of the day under strong, shadeless sun.
Carry at least two litres each — the cerrado is hot and fully exposed, there are no shops on the trails, and the cold plunge pools are the only water you'll meet along the way.
Vale da Lua sits outside the park on private land — it's reached separately from São Jorge and can close when the São Miguel river rises, so check conditions before driving out.
A guide is no longer required for the main park trails — you watch a short orientation video at the gate instead, but hire a local guide for off-park falls like Santa Bárbara in Kalunga country.
The park's waterfalls fill up on weekends and school holidays — come midweek if you can, since the daily entry cap can turn latecomers away on the busiest days.

Things to do

1
Swim below the Rio Preto falls
Below the twin drops of the Saltos do Rio Preto, wade into cold pools where the quartz-filtered water runs almost clear. After a long walk across the shadeless cerrado, that cold water is the reward the whole trail is built around. Come late in the morning, when the sun swings round to the falling water and the mist splits it into a rainbow hanging in the gorge. Upstream the river steps from one rock terrace to the next, each shelf holding its own shallow pool, and where it runs deep and green between the walls locals climb the ledges and jump.
2
Hike the Rio Preto canyons
Follow the trail as it drops into the canyons of the Rio Preto, tracing the water between steep quartzite walls. The rock underfoot is among the oldest on Earth, and the river has been cutting this gorge for hundreds of millions of years.
3
Walk the lunar rock of Vale da Lua
Just outside the park near São Jorge, the São Miguel river has polished grey quartzite into a field of smooth hollows and basins that looks genuinely lunar. Pick your way across the pitted rock between small natural pools, watching for slippery ground where the river runs.