Waterfalls
Among the hills.
Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wellyngton Nunes — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Iracema lima — CC BY-SA 4.0
Serra Azul State Park is a mountain reserve overlooking the town of Barra do Garças in eastern Mato Grosso. It covers some eleven thousand hectares of cerrado and marks the start of the famous Serra do Roncador range. The park was created in 1994, and its altitude runs from 350 metres at the entrance to 730 metres at its highest points, over rugged terrain with steep escarpments. The park lies on the bank of the Araguaia River, and many streams rise in its hills and flow into the Araguaia and the Rio das Mortes. Every kind of cerrado vegetation grows here, from gallery forest along the streams to rocky cerrado, and about 800 plant species and 180 bird species have been recorded; the Bororo people who lived in the area called it the «place of birds». The park is known for trails leading to about fifteen waterfalls, most of them fifteen to twenty-five metres high, for slopes used for paragliding, and for lookouts over the town and the meeting of the Garças and Araguaia rivers. It also holds the marker of the «geodesic centre of Brazil». Fires have swept it in dry seasons, so check which areas are open, and go in the morning with plenty of water.
Among the hills.
From the slopes.
From the lookouts.
On the edge of Barra do Garças, eastern Mato Grosso
In the dry season, May to September, in the morning before the heat.
