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 If you are unfortunate enough to live among the mayhem and madness of São Paulo and want to escape for a few days to a place where you can breathe some fresh air, enjoy beautiful views and wind down, then Monte Verde, just over the border in Minas Gerais, is a good option.
It is a three-hour drive from the city, with the last stretch a bumpy ride across what is more of a dirt track than a road, strewn with stones and rocks and red earth which soon envelops you and your car in dust. The town of Monte Verde suddenly appears like a mirage and is so clean and new that it looks as though it has just been delivered ready-made from a factory. This is not a quaint colonial town with centuries of history behind it but a calculated tourist trap which is developing at a fast pace. The main street is lined with souvenir shops, restaurants, bars and real estate companies trying to cash in on its growing popularity. There is also a kitsch Alpine theme to many of the buildings, constructed in chalet style with long sloping roofs, and the hotels and shops have names like Bavaria, Austria, Suíça etched in pokerwork in gothic script. This attempt at forming a mini Switzerland in Brazil is due to the town's location in the Serra de Mantiqueira mountains at an altitude of almost 2,000 meters. The prices of some of the products are certainly up to Swiss standards but the service and food is not. One café had no soft drinks on two occasions I passed while the fondue and roesti I sampled in another place bore no resemblance to the real thing. Not only was the roesti cold but contained no onion. This is like having a hot dog without the sausage. The fondue was a gooey mess that you could chew it on its own without any need for bread and lacked the kick the combination of kirsch, white wine and garlic gives to a real Swiss fondue. Forests, Flowers and Humming Birds Still these are mere details. Forget the town and concentrate on the surrounding countryside. The mountains are heavily forested. Much of the woodland is still native Atlantic rainforest while other areas are planted with pine and eucalyptus for the pulp and paper trade. The altitude means that there are few examples of palm or banana and the vegetation and scenery is more European-looking than the humid steamy jungle normally associated with Brazil. Despite this, the forests are filled with colorful flowers like brinco de princesa and bromelias which, in turn, attract bees and humming birds. There is a rich variety of bird life, including the big vultures known as urubu which are so graceful as they soar above the mountains and rocks yet so ugly at close range. There are also hawks, tree creepers, woodpeckers, owls, herons, migrant swifts and martins and more common species such as the thrush-like bem-te-vi and sabiá, the tico-tico finch and the homely little sparrow you will see anywhere in Europe. Although the vegetation goes right to the summit of the mountains there are several rocky points which are accessible and provide superb all-round views degrees. These climbs through Tolkienseque woodland, with twisted roots and branches, steep falls and hidden banks, can be a bit tough and require some stamina but everyone agrees they are worth the effort. These viewpoints - Pedra Partida, Pedra Redonda, Chapéu do Bispo - are known locally as "stones." This is a real understatement since they are actually mountain peaks. The name of the fourth viewpoint - Pico de Selado or the Peak of The Saddle - gives a more accurate description. The Chapéu do Bispo (Bishop's Hat) is probably the most interesting and easiest. From this peak you can cross over to an area known as the Platô which is a large rock plateau, where hardy plants, algae and lichen grow and horses graze on the tough grass, which can withstand the wind. Hardy Country This area reminded me of Thomas Hardy's Wessex and I could imagine characters like Michael Henchard from the Mayor of Casterbridge or Tess of the D'Urbervilles passing through. An odd comparison you might think although not so unlikely. Like many Victorian writers, Hardy used Brazil as a convenient place for characters to disappear to. Angel Clare, for example, goes to Brazil and wants Tess to join him later although she is not keen. As Hardy wrote, "At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil, notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm-labourers who had emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months." In fact, it was the similarity this area bore to Europe that led to its development. A Lithuanian called Werner Grinberg (Monte Verde in Portuguese) fell for the region during a visit in 1940 because it reminded him of his native land. He bought a farmhouse near the Pico de Selado and over the years bought more land and helped open it to settlement and tourism. The first incomers were also Lithuanians, followed by Germans, Hungarians and, of course, the Italians who are to be found in every corner of Brazil. If the Platô reminded me of Hardy then the Chapéu do Bispo made me think of Henry Rider Haggard's classic adventure story King Solomon's Mines. This Bishop's Hat is a huge boulder the size of a house which look as though a giant has placed it there. There are cracks and entrances and at any moment you could imagine the African witch Gagool appearing, with her horrible bones and feathers and fetishes, and scaring the English treasure hunter, Alan Quatermain, and his faithful Zulu guide, Umslopogaas, to death. The whole area has a mystical quality about it and it is surprising that it seems to have had no religious significance for the original inhabitants. From the Platô it is another stiff hike to the Pico where, if you have the climbing ability of a mountain goat and the daring of a lion, you can stand on some isolated rocks and feel you are on top of the world. The two other climbs - Pedra Partida and Redonda - can also be done on the same day although, generally speaking, the ascent is a bit tougher. Safety First One of the pleasures of these walks is that, unlike the town of Monte Verde, there is no commercialism involved. You do not need to pay to enter and can set off through the forest whenever you want. I was told that the land belongs to a forestry company and some local people are worried that one day access might be closed. It is difficult to see this happening but the company certainly makes no efforts to encourage people to visit the stones. Apart from a couple of crude signposts giving the name and altitude there are no facilities whatsoever. There are no steps, handrails, notice boards, litter bins, maps, toilets or information about the distance or time it takes to arrive at the destinations. On the way down you are constantly being asked by breathless walkers how much further to the summit. The lack of safety precautions means that visitors have to take great care. One false step and you could easily fall to your death from the summit or even injure yourself climbing through the forest. This does not put people off and I saw several elderly people gamely clambering up rocks, holding onto tree trunks and bushes. If climbing and walking through tangled forests is not to your taste there are plenty other options, including horse riding, rappelling, motor cycle scrambling or fishing. The town is very lively and relaxing (if you don't look too closely at the bill) and has a good night life. It lies about 170 kilometers from São Paulo and is reached via the Fernão Dias highway. John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. He can be contacted at
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. You can read more by him at his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br. © John Fitzpatrick 2006
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