Alto Paraíso de Goiás

The history of Alto Paraíso goes back to the middle of the 18th century, when Francisco de Almeida set up a cattle ranch on the plateau and called the area Veadeiros, from the deer that lived there. The first settlers raised cattle and, because of the altitude and cooler climate, wheat. For a long time it remained a remote ranching district in the hills north of what would become the Federal District.

Veadeiros appeared as a district of Cavalcante in 1938 and separated from it in 1953 to become a municipality. In 1961 President Juscelino Kubitschek created a national park on the plateau, the year after he inaugurated Brasília, and the new capital, some 220 km to the south, later became the source of most of its visitors.

In more recent times the town changed character. Visitors drawn by the waterfalls and canyons were joined by people seeking a spiritual life, and the town gained a reputation as a centre of mysticism, with dozens of religious and philosophical communities. In 2001 the national park was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and the area around the town became part of the Pouso Alto environmental protection area. Tourism is now an important business.

Alto Paraíso is best known in Brazil for its mystic reputation. Some 40 mystical, philosophical and religious communities are counted here — Daimists, followers of Osho, Hare Krishna devotees, Kardecist spiritists, Buddhists and Protestants among them. Believers hold that a vast layer of quartz crystal beneath the plateau makes this a chosen place that emanates positive energy, and the 14th parallel, which also crosses Machu Picchu, passes through the town, a source of stories about UFOs. Alternative and esoteric therapies are offered in many parts of town, and crystal souvenirs and hippie clothing are sold in town.

Alongside the newcomers lives the older rural culture of the Goiás highlands, rooted in the cattle farms that founded the town, and the mixture gives it a character unlike other farming towns of the region.

Nights are relaxed rather than loud. Local musicians in the town's bars favour rock, blues, reggae and esoteric music.

Alto Paraíso is a small town in a large, thinly populated municipality, where most residents live in the town and the rest on farms and in São Jorge, a village of about 250 people. It has a more developed infrastructure than São Jorge, with hotels, inns, campsites, bars, restaurants, small shops, bakeries, pharmacies and banks. Three banks have branches here — Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal and Itaú — and the municipality's schools include Bona Espero, a rural community school for poor children run by a German Esperanto organisation.

Tourism is a major source of work, through inns, restaurants, guiding and crafts, while cattle ranching and farming continue on the plateau. The tourist calendar sets the rhythm of the year: the dry months from May to September and the school holidays bring crowds, while the rainy season is quieter.

The town sits within the Pouso Alto environmental protection area, and protecting the cerrado, the springs and the waterfalls is a central local concern, especially in the dry season, when wildfires threaten the plateau.

The food of Alto Paraíso is the cooking of Goiás. Simple restaurants serve traditional Goiás dishes and the prato feito, a set plate of rice, beans and meat, and some offer feijoada, the black-bean stew, and salads. Pequi, the strongly scented fruit of the cerrado, flavours rice and chicken dishes across the state, and visitors are warned not to bite into its spiny stone.

Other Goiás favourites include empadão goiano, a large pie filled with chicken, pork sausage, cheese and hearts of palm, and pamonha, a sweet or savoury paste of fresh maize cooked in its husk. There are pizzerias too, and most places to eat are on or near the main avenue.

The local drink sold in town shops is pinga de arnica, a strong cane spirit infused with arnica, sold alongside crystals and hippie clothing as a souvenir. In the evening, local musicians play in the town's bars.