Vale da Lua
Interesting facts
- Calcite deposited in the rock while it lay buried dissolves easily in water, helping the river hollow out its round pits.
- Each pothole starts as a whirlpool that traps pebbles, which then spin and grind the riverbed like a drill.
- The valley lies on private land just outside the national park, which protects the surrounding plateau.
- The national park was founded in 1961 by President Juscelino Kubitschek as Tocantins National Park and took its current name in 1972.
- Enlarged in 2017 to about 240,000 hectares, the park protects 466 springs in a region known as the water tank of Brazil's Central Plateau.
- The region's abundant quartz outcrops once supplied rock crystal exported to Japan and England for industrial use.
- The 14th parallel south, which also passes Machu Picchu, crosses the Chapada, one reason for the area's lively mystical tourism.
Why it is worth it
In the highlands of Goiás in central Brazil, the São Miguel river runs through a stretch of bare grey rock so pitted, scooped and rippled that it looks less like a riverbed than the surface of another world. The Vale da Lua – the Valley of the Moon – is a corridor of smooth stone in which the water has worn round potholes, basins, narrow channels and overhanging lips, many of them holding clear, still pools. Seen from above, the eroded surface resembles a cratered lunar landscape, which gave the place its name.
The sculpting is the work of the river itself. Over an immense span of time, pebbles and sand carried by fast-flowing water have been spun in eddies against the rock, drilling cylindrical hollows that merge into one another as they deepen and widen. The bedrock belongs to the very old metamorphic formations of the Chapada dos Veadeiros, a high plateau whose rocks date back well over a billion years and are dominated by quartzites that began as sediments on an ancient sea floor. Where softer, more soluble material was mixed into the rock it was removed faster, adding to the irregular, honeycombed texture of the surface.
The valley lies in the Chapada dos Veadeiros region, close to the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, which protects a large expanse of Brazil's cerrado savanna and is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site dedicated to the cerrado. The nearest settlement is the village of São Jorge, the gateway to the national park, while the town of Alto Paraíso de Goiás, the main base for the region, lies on the edge of the plateau.
Getting there
The Vale da Lua lies in the municipality of Alto Paraíso de Goiás, about 9 km from the village of São Jorge on the GO-239 road, which links São Jorge with Alto Paraíso (about 36 km apart). Alto Paraíso is about 230 km from Brasília by road via the GO-118. The nearest major airport is Brasília International Airport (BSB), about 187 km away in a straight line; the town of Niquelândia is about 79 km away.
On these lists
-14.18677, -47.78958per Wikidata