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 orange dunes, waterfalls and cerrado savanna in eastern Brazil, and the thing people come for is a spring that will not let them sink. Groundwater pushes up through the sand floor of a fervedouro hard enough to hold you at the surface. You 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. It is not the water that does it. This is ordinary fresh water, and in a still pool of it you would sink like anywhere else. The lift comes from the flow: rising groundwater keeps the sand grains suspended and pushes upward hard enough to cancel your weight. So the depth makes no difference, and the strongest springs hold you up over several metres of water. The Rio Novo drops at Cachoeira da Velha in a wide horseshoe, carrying far too much water to swim in. You take it from the walkway and the deck below, close enough for the spray to reach you, and do the swimming downstream at Prainha, where the river spreads into a shallow beach. Wind has been quarrying sand off the Serra do Espírito Santo for millennia and piling it at the foot of the hill, into burnt-orange dunes standing alone in the savanna. You go up them barefoot, because the sand is fine and deep. In the Quilombola village of Mumbuca, artisans coil stiff golden stalks into bowls, baskets and rings, stitching them with thread stripped from buriti palm. They learned the technique from their Xerente neighbours. The gold is not a grass at all. It is the flower stalk of a sempre-viva, and by law nobody may cut one before 20 September. The date exists so the plant can drop its seed first: a stalk pulled before that takes next year's seed with it and leaves nothing to grow back.

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.