Brotas

Brotas does not look like much from the highway — a modest interior town about three and a half hours from São Paulo city, surrounded by rolling farmland rather than any obvious dramatic scenery. It is only once you get down to river level that the appeal becomes obvious: the region sits on a network of rivers cutting through sandstone, creating rapids, waterfalls, and canyons dense enough that Brotas has built its entire economy around adventure tourism.

I went with a group of friends for a weekend that was supposed to be one rafting trip and turned into three separate outdoor activities before we’d even had lunch on the first day. The rafting itself, on the Rio Jacaré-Pepira, was more technical than I expected — a series of Class II and III rapids that dumped me out of the raft twice within the first hour, once into water shallow enough that I mostly just felt embarrassed rather than in danger.

The waterfalls are where Brotas really shows off. The region is dotted with cachoeiras accessible by short hikes, many set up for rappelling, canyoning, or simple swimming depending on how much adrenaline you’re after that day. I did a rappel down the face of one modest waterfall with a local guide holding the rope with what I hoped was professional confidence, and stood soaked and grinning at the bottom of a fall I would have happily just admired from a distance a day earlier.

Beyond the whitewater, the area has calmer rivers for tubing and kayaking, better suited to a lazy afternoon than an adrenaline itinerary, and Lia — who joined for the second day and firmly declined the rafting — spent hers floating down a gentle stretch of river on an inner tube with a cold drink in hand, which in hindsight might have been the better plan.

The town itself is low-key, built around outfitters and pousadas rather than nightlife, and evenings are for grilled meat, cold beer, and comparing bruises from the day’s activities with whoever else is staying at your pousada.

When to go: May to September, dry season, when river levels are lower and more predictable for rafting and canyoning. Weekends fill up with São Paulo groups, so weekday visits are quieter and cheaper.