Rare species on Pico da Canjerana
On the upper slopes of Pico da Canjerana, inside the 40-square-mile Santuário do Caraça in Minas Gerais, biologist and guide Marcelo Vasconcelos drops to his knees beside a rare carnivorous plant. Drosera graminifolia appears as a miniature forest of green spikes covered in sticky red tentacles; two gnats have become stuck and are slowly being digested. The find comes after a climb through bamboo forest into high-altitude grassland, where dark peaks rise through early morning clouds and flowering mimosa bushes drip with mist. A devastating fire swept the area two years earlier, and Vasconcelos had not returned since. “We have some extremely rare endemic species up here,” he says. “I hope they’ve survived.” A hummingbird—a Planalto hermit—darts toward a banana-shaped yellow-and-red flower, its bill matched to the bloom.
The reserve lies in Minas Gerais, a landlocked state bordering Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to the south. It covers an area larger than mainland France and Switzerland combined, with abundant mineral resources, a growing population and exceptionally rich flora and fauna. The state’s modern identity was forged in the late 17th century, when the first modern gold rush began there; gold from Minas Gerais helped finance Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Those early mines have since been overshadowed by controversial iron ore quarries, the sites of two recent dam failures that drowned hundreds of people and flooded vulnerable river valleys.
Long mountain ranges rise above the extraction zones, sheltering thousands of rare plants and animals, some found nowhere else on Earth and many still undescribed by science. Tourism is one of the few economic alternatives to mining, giving value—and a future—to these ecosystems. Vasconcelos has spent his life in this landscape and has discovered several new species. “I have a cockroach named after me,” he says with a chuckle.
A forest reduced but still alive
As the trail drops into forest on the lower slopes, it enters remnants of the Atlantic rainforest that once covered 580,000 square miles of Brazil. The pre-colonial forest was second in size only to the Amazon and sent early visitors, including Charles Darwin, into raptures. An estimated 85% of the ecosystem has been felled, but what remains still delivers an overwhelming experience: morpho butterflies flit through shady glades like animated slivers of blue sky, marmosets whistle overhead, and brilliantly colorful birds burst from trees laden with epiphytic plants.
The rarest birds include the elusive tapaculos, which live on the ground in dark bamboo groves. As a postgraduate student, Vasconcelos found a new species, the rock tapaculo; on this route, that bird and many others can be spotted. Santuário do Caraça began as a mission station around 1770 and is now a private nature reserve. The name also belongs to the stone-built former seminary where visitors stay, which serves magnificent breakfasts, including a cook-your-own setup on a huge wood-fired hotplate.
The real draw, however, is the maned wolves—mysterious animals that come to be fed at the chapel door. The appearance of a huge maned head almost within touching distance around the lichen-encrusted stone balustrade is a memorable wildlife encounter. South of Caraça, the roads are packed with mining lorries covered in red dust. The route passes the valley where a dam collapsed in 2015, killing 19 people and releasing 44 million cubic meters of toxic waste into the river system. Despite that catastrophe, a second dam operated by the same company, Vale, collapsed at nearby Brumadinho four years later, killing 272. No one has yet been prosecuted. Through stands of eucalyptus trees, a valley floor can be seen submerged under lifeless red mud.
Baroque gold and the memory of slavery
The contrast is abrupt: a mountain pass leads down a steep cobbled road into Ouro Preto, an 18th-century town that is itself a product of mining during Brazil’s first gold rush. Its baroque churches have sculpture caked in gold and ceilings alive with cherubim and angels. The main sculptor was Aleijadinho, born to an enslaved African housemaid and a Portuguese builder. His painter colleague, Mestre Ataíde, depicted many African and mixed-race faces on the magnificent nave ceiling, reflecting the complex nature of a society where brutal slavery was endemic and yet mixed relationships were tolerated.
Farther west, the route takes in Inhotim, a renowned arts center and botanical garden; a bee sanctuary, which serves another excellent breakfast; and an idyllic agroforestry farm. Each is a fascinating attempt to loosen mining’s hold on the state economy. In Brumadinho, a late-night dinner with chef Marcela offers a curious and playful tour de force of the state’s renowned cuisine. The intimate Alquimista Bistrô Secreto serves tasting menus for up to eight people and requires advance booking.
Farther south, slavery returns to the foreground. A quilombo—a village where escaped slaves settled—preserves a distinct Afro-Brazilian culture. At Fabi’s restaurant, lunch is feijoada, the national dish of beans and pork stew. After the meal, Fabi asks guests whether they would like to see the “farm.” The farm is the historical fazenda from which her ancestors escaped. The visit continues with her elderly aunt, Maureena, who has Alzheimer’s but is always singing and smiling.
The fazenda is a beautiful two-story stone mansion with whitewashed walls and blue window frames, set in a clearing of wild jungle. A sweeping stone staircase leads down into a broad yard “where the slaves were punished,” Fabi says. Her 99-year-old uncle can no longer bear to visit. “As a child he heard terrible stories from grandparents who had been enslaved,” she says. “Now, if he comes, he hears screaming.”
Abolition came late to Brazil, in 1888. The country took more than 4 million captives, almost half the total transatlantic trade. In the 1830s, Charles Darwin, enraptured by Brazil’s natural wonders, was appalled. “It makes one’s blood boil … to think of the English and Americans with their boastful cry of liberty … who are so guilty of all this,” he wrote. He may have been alluding to then-US President Andrew Jackson, who rewarded anyone who gave an extra flogging to his runaway “property.” Emancipation did not end the suffering. Penniless, jobless and landless, freed enslaved people descended on the cities, filling the slums known as favelas.
At the fazenda, the captives were kept in a dark cellar under the house. Visitors enter; bats flit about. An old piece of timber on the floor is thought by Fabi to have been the flogging post. Aunt Maureena laughs gaily. Since Alzheimer’s struck, the childhood horror stories have been forgotten—the secret, perhaps, of her beatific cheerfulness. Upstairs, in the elegant colonial drawing room, a kiskadee, a type of flycatcher, has built a nest on the windowsill. The parent bird is perched outside on a fence next to the former slave pen, a lizard hanging dead from its beak, and it continues to hammer its prey relentlessly on the timber. Aunt Maureena, still smiling, wanders away, quietly singing Ave Maria to herself.
Practical details
Five-night tailor-made tours of Minas Gerais are offered by Latin America specialist Sumak Travel and Brazil specialist Viare Travel, starting at £1,050. The price includes airport transfers, birdwatching at Santuário do Caraça, a city tour of Ouro Preto, a quilombo tour, Inhotim gardens and some meals. TAP Air Portugal flies from Manchester and London to Belo Horizonte via Lisbon, with return fares from £1,082. Useful field guides include A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil by Ber van Perlo, published by OUP, and A Field Guide to Larger Mammals of South America by Richard Webb and Jeff Blincow, published by Wild Guides.