Cambuquira is one of four towns in the Circuito das Aguas - the Water Circuit - of southern Minas Gerais, together with Lambari, Sao Lourenco, and Caxambu. Each sits on a different chemistry of mineral spring: some ferrous, some sulfurous, some carbonated, some rich in magnesium or lithium. The water made the towns. In 1861, the city council of nearby Campanha dispossessed the land around the Cambuquira springs, ruling them public utility and opening them to visitation. By 1872, a settlement called Arraial de Cambuquira existed in the district. The Minas and Rio Railroad reached the town in 1894, and the population grew around the station. On May 12, 1911, Decree No. 2528 elevated Cambuquira to a municipality, with Dr. Raul de Noronha Sa as first mayor. In 1970, the Brazilian state formally designated it a Hydromineral Resort.

At the center of town, the Parque das Aguas holds five named fountains, each with a distinct chemical profile that nineteenth-century physicians associated with specific ailments. The Regina Werneck spring produces carbonated water once prescribed for kidney and liver conditions. The Roxo Rodrigues carbonated spring adds lithium, traditionally used for nervous conditions. The Comendador Augusto Ferreira spring is heavy with magnesium. The Dr. Sousa Lima spring is sulfurous. The Dr. Fernandes Pinheiro spring is ferrous, recommended for anemia. Whether the therapeutic claims hold up to modern medicine is another matter, but the park itself - with its gardens, playgrounds, hydrotherapy spa, and pedalo-boat lake - has remained a functioning retreat for more than a century. In a 1997 survey by the Brazilian magazine VIP Exames, Cambuquira's water ranked second in the world for taste, behind only Wales's Ty Nant.

The Igreja Matriz de Sao Sebastiao was built by a consortium of local men - Antonio Joaquim da Silva Lemos, Jose Vicente da Silva, Casimiro Jose da Costa, Thome da Silva Lemos, Manoel Martins, and Jose Martins - starting in 1920 and finished in 1925. Two bell towers flank the facade. A large stained-glass window and clock sit above the main door. Inside, a simple nave with ceramic floors and wooden lath ceilings leads toward a Saint Sebastian sculpture at the altar. Patron saint of the town, Sebastian is celebrated on January 20, the day the town's calendar pivots around. The church stands a few blocks from Bandeira Plaza, along the Virgilio de Melo Franco Avenue - locally called Rua Direita - a short walk into the oldest part of town.

The high country around Cambuquira offers two commanding overlooks. Alto do Cruzeiro, also called Santa Quiteria's High, rises to 1,114 meters and holds a large cross. From its top, the town unfolds below among coffee plantations, with the mysterious stone city of Sao Thome das Letras visible to the east. Higher still, at 1,372 meters, the Pico do Piripau in the Serra das Aguas commands a view reaching Tres Coracoes - birthplace of the footballer Pele - and Lambari, its sister water town. The peak also serves as the North Ramp of the Cambuquira Hang-Gliding Club, founded in November 1997. The 400-meter drop accepts three gliders simultaneously. The best flying runs from August through November, when cool dry air keeps the thermals clean. From above, the coffee plantations spread in green-brown corduroy below the wings.

The rivers of Cambuquira - the Lambari, Lambarizinho, and Sao Bento - drop through the hills in a sequence of waterfalls. The Salto das Sete Cachoeiras is the most dramatic, with seven stepped falls. The Cascata do Congonhal lies three kilometers from town. Cascata da Usina sits eighteen kilometers out. Smaller falls at Sao Bento and Hilton round out a landscape that is mostly water, coffee, and sky. In 1961, the Observatorio Centauro opened as an astronomy study center, serving both amateur astronomers and local schools. A small town of roughly 12,800 people, Cambuquira produces almost nothing at industrial scale. What it offers instead is older and harder to produce: water with measurable minerals, views from peaks that hold hang-glider ramps, and a church named for a martyr bound to arrows, in a town whose first farmland was given away when the owners died without heirs.