The canyon
Thirty kilometres long.
Beto mus — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Alessandro Augusto Alves Pinto — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bruno Bastos de Oliveira — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bruno Bastos de Oliveira — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Lenir Guilhem — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Eder Carlos Wehrholdt — CC BY-SA 4.0
Guartelá State Park is a reserve in the municipality of Tibagi, in Paraná's Campos Gerais region, created in 1992 to protect the Guartelá canyon, described as the longest canyon in Brazil and the sixth longest in the world. The canyon runs for about thirty kilometres and is up to 450 metres deep, carved by the Iapó River as it cuts through the Devonian Escarpment, the rock wall separating Paraná's first and second plateaus. The park holds caves, waterfalls, rapids, sandstone formations and ancient rock paintings. Plants from very different settings grow side by side here: Atlantic Forest ferns, cacti like those of drier lands, and araucaria pines. Its wildlife includes the maned wolf and the puma, both threatened. The park lies about nineteen kilometres from Tibagi and forty from Castro, and visitors walk its trails between lookouts and waterfalls, while rafting is practised on the nearby rivers. Set off early and carry water.
Thirty kilometres long.
Ancient art.
Along the trails.
Guartelá de Cima, about 19 km from Tibagi, Paraná
About an hour and a half by car via Tibagi.