Serra do Cipó is a spectacular sandstone mountain range about 90km north-east of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, and that's where I spent most of the day (the rest in holiday weekend traffic!!). My guides and hosts were again Thiago from Golder BH, and his partner Jane.
Cipó is the southern part of the greater Serra dos Espinhaço (which extends all the way up into Bahia). Cipó is also on the Estrada Real, the Royal Road, built to bring gold from Ouro Preto and elsewhere in Minas Gerais back to the royal coffers in Rio de Janeiro a few hundred years back.
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| This ute laden down with abacaxi (pineapples) was one of many beside the Estrada Real in Cipó. these guys cut the abacaxi into quarters, bag them, put them on ice, and sell from the roadside for about R$1. On a hot day, fantastic ... |
Cipó ranges in altitude from about 1,000 up to 1,700m, and today we spent some time around 1,400m, in the high cerrado vegetation. Cerrado is a biome unique to Brazil, and though it has parallels with savannah and grasslands, it's neither really - and exists as a continuum between treeless vegetation right through to gallery forest - but has sclerophyllous shrubs even in the most open formations. The biodiversity is very high; more so than for any other grassy system (apparently).
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| Scrubby cerrado at Cachoeira da Capivara |
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| More of the same ... high cerrado |
On the long weekend for Brazilian Independence Day (coming on Tuesday, 7/9/2010), the main interest in Cipó for Brazilians is in taking it easy near water, whilst eating, drinking, kicking footballs, and walking the cerrado trails.
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| Enjoying the view - snapped by Thiago |
Apart from meeting up with a statue of Juquinha, a chap who lived off the land, exchanging flowers and other natural currency for tobacco, we also walked up a steep stony track paved by slave labour to one of the numerous cachoeiras (waterfalls) - Cachoeira da Capivara. This part of Brazil is deep in drought this year - the flip side of the La Niña high rainfall in eastern Australia perhaps - and so the waterfalls aren't doing much. The Cipó landscape is so spectacular though that a little heat (low 30s) and dust is not going to keep us from having a good time.
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| Juquinha and me ... |
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| Slave labour built this trail to Cachoeira da Capivara |
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| Thiago admiring the view from the top |
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| After slogging up the hill in low 30s heat, the cool water in the pool above the falls was irresistible. |
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