São Roque de Minas

A small town that exists as the front door to Serra da Canastra, and worth staying in rather than passing through. The park is the reason - the big waterfall where the São Francisco comes off the top of the chapada (plateau), and then the chapada itself, which is grass, rock and sky for as far as you can see with nothing built on any of it. The best bit for me was not the famous waterfall but the stretches where the river runs flat over bare rock shelves and steps down in a dozen small falls at once. Take a car you do not mind rattling, fill up before you go in, and eat in town afterwards - I had a bowl of feijão with torresmo (pork crackling) that was exactly right after a day in the wind.