A Weekend at the Cerrado

This weekend I went with a friend to the national park of Chapada dos Veadeiros some hours north of Brasilia. It could have started better as the car we thought we should be driving there was not quite fit we had to rent a car, then my friend was chaught up in something which made us leave 3-4 hours later than planned which in turn we had to drive most of the way and all the part of the unpaved road in the dark. On top of that I had a very stressful week so it took a while before I could relax and stop being irritable. But what can be better for relaxing and getting out of stress than a weekend of hiking and swimming in beautiful nature with nice company?


Immediately on arrival at the pousada in the small village of São Jorge I realised this will be fine. A very laid back loungy atmosphere and beautifully decorated place under a lovely starry sky.

On Saturday we went for a hike in the park. The cerrado is a fascinating place. It is not in any way ingratiating, on first sight it might even look rather ugly and unfriendly in all its dry vastness, but if you scratch ever so little on the rough surface you find a wealth of beauty and fascination. There is a richnes in flora and eventhough animals and birds are difficult to spot in the hottes day hours the landscape and vegetation makes up for it.



And the water! Because amidst all dryeness there are plenty of rivers and creeks everywhere. Eventhough it is all a plateu there are big differents in hights and a lot of canyons and valleys that make room for a lot of waterfalls. Waterfalls with clear cool water that you can drink right from the creek and swim in. Lovely!!

A quite fascinating feature is that the ground here to quite a big extent is made of pure crystal and quarts. Therefore you will walk on paths all covered in white and pink quarts stone and in some places you can see completely clear crystals, sometimes leftovers from miners of old days.



This crystal has gatherd a lot of new age people, hippies and spritualists to the area and apparently it has certain energies, I was told you sometimes can see flashes shooting up from the ground, like flashes from thunder, but coming from the ground. I didn't see it and it sounds weird, but... That should also be one of the reasons for some of the many fires in the cerrado this time of the year, we saw several during the weekend, but those are also caused by self-igniting plants. We were told about the Candombá plant that has a self combustible oil that makes it ignite, but at the same time have features that protects itself from the fire. Very smart plant, setting everything on fire, but self be safe! As I said; the cerrado is a fascinating place.