Alto Caparaó- MG and Vale Verde | Brazil

As I said in my last post here in the community, I was on the road and exploring new places and I took the opportunity to make a lot of records to share here. In January I traveled to the Caparaó National Park, located in the town of Alto Caparaó - Minas Gerais - and I'm still overwhelmed by all the beauty I saw there.

I only stayed a few days, as this wasn't the final destination of my trip and it was just a quick stopover before driving on to the state of Bahia. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to explore the region as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I'll definitely be back.

I'm going to divide this post into a few parts, because even though I stayed less than I would have liked, there were a lot of attractions visited and I think I'll be able to talk about each one better this way.

Today I'll start with the arrival in Alto Caparaó, which is already breathtaking from the road, from where you can already see a huge range of mountains, including Pico da Bandeira, the third highest peak in Brazil.

The road is definitely an attraction in itself, as the whole region is full of mountains that are often covered with coffee plantations. At some points, the coffee plantations share the landscape with recovering native forest and stretches that are still very well preserved.

Arriving in the city, we went to find a quiet place to park and enjoy the area. As we had a trailer, the idea was to stop anywhere that was quiet. So I found this street, on the way to the park, in a very quiet rural neighborhood. The street was next to the Caparaó River, on a stretch that is outside the park but cuts through the town.

As it was late afternoon, we still had an hour of light to stop and take a dip in the river after long hours of travel. It was an incredible reward. There were few people around and I could tell that most of them were locals and not tourists. People who were leaving work and stopped for a dip or were walking their dogs. That was very magical to see. Although very cold, the waters are crystal clear and very nice.

The National Park

The next day we went up to the entrance of the National Park, which was just a few meters from where we had stopped, and explored the area, starting with the first waterfall on the route: Vale Verde. Although a park official told us that the waterfall was just pretty and that we should spend our time exploring the next one, we were already extremely impressed by the beauty of the place.

Maybe it's because the region I live in has few waterfalls, but this one was really wonderful and had one of the most beautiful pools I've ever seen.

In addition to the emerald-colored pools, the waterfall also has a giant natural slide and an absurdly beautiful view of the valley. As it is quite extensive and the river flows down the mountain, those with more time will certainly have plenty to explore there.
Unfortunately, I only stayed at the main pools.

Another thing that impressed me was the different color of the rocks, which obviously interfered with the color of the water and the waterfall itself. Everywhere it looked like a totally different scene. I stayed at this waterfall for a few hours, where I also stopped for lunch and then we moved on to the next points of interest in the park. But I'll talk about them in the next post!

I hope you enjoyed it.

See ya. 🌳