The Chapada Diamantina, the new trekking Eldorado?
Located 500 km west of Salvador the Chapada Diamantina is one of the most ancient geological places on this continent. In this sedimentary basin, the slow and steady erosion of time and the elements has caused two notable effects:
It uncovered the diamonds, formed in the depths of the earth causing a "diamond rush" in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and giving the mountain range the name of Diamantina.
It has also created a magnificently wild landscape overflowing with flowers and bursting with life, protected by the 84,000 square kilometers of National Park. The word "chapada" comes from "chapa" (slab), which echoes the shape of the "morros", the almost circular flat toped mountains (table mountains). In between these colossal mounds reminiscent of Monument Valley, the plateaus are covered with low vegetation while typically lush tropical valleys, where most of the great rivers of the state of Bahia begin and wind their way from waterfall to waterfall, surround them.
Grandiose and wild Chapada Diamantina
This playground provides a variety of distractions and lends itself to a drive around the most famous sites (the Morro do Pai Inacio, the Cave of Lapa Doce, the Poço Azul and the Poço Encantado…); but better yet the best way to discover what the Chapada has to offer is on foot.
In six to eight days you can really appreciate what this area has to offer; be it walks across sand and earth or climbing a granite mountain with a view that will take your breath away.
Lodging is organized in the home of a local inhabitant; in the valleys where the paths are only wide enough for a donkey and where life moves to the rhythm of the land and this rare form of sincere and spontaneous hospitality full of kindness and respect still exists.
And as we have all understood, the true diamonds of the Chapada Diamantina are not hidden under the earth or at the bottom of rivers; they are simply accessible to those who open their eyes.
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