Jalapão

DesertsTocantins,Brazil

Orange dunes, waterfalls and cerrado in eastern Brazil, with sand springs whose upwelling water is strong enough to hold a swimmer at the surface.

September·Peaking now

May–Sep

The dry season, and Jalapão at its fullest: the fervedouros run gin-clear, the red-dirt tracks are firm, and every dune, spring and waterfall is open. June and July are all but rainless; by September the heat builds and the golden-grass harvest opens.

Year-round The upwelling springs, the orange dunes and Cachoeira da Velha stand here every month; the calendar changes the water's clarity, the golden-grass harvest and whether the red-dirt tracks run firm or turn to mud.

Jalapão is a region of orange dunes, waterfalls and cerrado savanna in the state of Tocantins, in eastern Brazil, a state park of red-dirt tracks reached by four-wheel drive from Palmas, with springs in the sand whose upwelling water is strong enough to hold a swimmer at the surface without a stroke, and a golden grass that the villages weave into baskets and may cut only after 20 September. The fervedouros are the region's trick: groundwater pushes up through the sand floor of a pool hard enough to keep a body at the surface, and lying back the spring carries the swimmer, in water so clear that every grain of sand is seen boiling up beneath, the buoyancy not from density but from the flow, so the pools take a few people at a time in turns; the Cachoeira da Velha is the big water, the Rio Novo dropping in a wide horseshoe carrying far too much to swim in, taken in from the walkway and the deck below with the spray reaching, and then swum downstream at the beach of Prainha. Wind has been quarrying sand off the Serra do Espírito Santo for millennia and piling it into burnt-orange dunes standing alone in the savanna, climbed for the sunset with the serra behind. In the Quilombola village of Mumbuca the artisans coil the stiff golden stalks of capim dourado into bowls, baskets and rings, stitching them with thread stripped from the buriti palm, a technique handed down from their Xerente neighbours, and the grass is not a grass but the flower stalk of a sempre-viva that by law nobody may cut before 20 September, harvested by hand in the wet veredas until the end of November; the collectors say it no longer grows as thickly and the streams have turned murky. The dry season from May to September gives the springs their clarity and the tracks their firmness, since a day of rain browns a spring for hours. Jalapão is a savanna with springs that float people, and the grass it weaves is gold.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The dunes run on timed entry — book a voucher in advance; the windows open early morning and mid-afternoon, and no guide may lead more than ten people at once.
Sunscreen, repellent and perfume are banned in the springs — rinse off before you get in, and expect a wait: only ten people may be in a fervedouro at once, for about twenty minutes each.
Save the dunes for the end of the day — the sand is brutal underfoot at midday, and the sunset from the crest is the reason people climb up there at all.
Long weekends fill the dunes — more than a thousand people turned up over a single holiday weekend, so aim for midweek if you want the crest to yourself.

Things to do

1
Let a fervedouro hold you on the surface
Groundwater pushes up through the sand floor hard enough to keep you at the surface — lie back and the spring carries you, without a stroke. The water is cold and startlingly clear, the pool is ringed with palms, and the sand underneath churns like a slow boil the whole time you float.
2
Watch Cachoeira da Velha thunder, then swim downstream
The Rio Novo drops here in a wide horseshoe carrying far too much water to swim in; you take it in from the walkway and the viewing deck below, close enough for the spray to reach you. For the swim, carry on to the Prainha do Rio Novo just downstream, where the river spreads into a shallow beach of pale sand.
3
Meet the golden-grass artisans of Mumbuca
Artisans in this Quilombola village coil stiff golden stalks into bowls, baskets and rings, stitching them with thread stripped from buriti palm — a technique handed down from their Xerente neighbours. Sitting with them in the workshop is the closest you get to understanding why the grass is called gold here.
4
Climb the orange dunes at the foot of the serra
Wind has been quarrying sand off the Serra do Espírito Santo for millennia and piling it here, into burnt-orange dunes standing alone in the savanna. You go up barefoot, because the sand is fine and deep. A steep track of about eight kilometres round trip puts you on the rim of the hill it all came from.