Chapada means tableland in Portuguese, and the word describes the country exactly. The Chapada dos Guimarães plateau rises in orange sandstone cliffs above the Mato Grosso lowlands, its top flat enough to drive across and its edges sliced by canyons and waterfalls. Guimarães comes from the surname of the first settlers, Portuguese migrants who climbed the escarpment in the eighteenth century. The village they founded sits atop the plateau at about 800 meters, and until 1980 it held the record for the largest municipality in the world by area - its boundaries once extended to what is now Sinop, 500 kilometers to the north. The town is small today, a few thousand people along stone-paved streets, but its reach into the surrounding National Park and private lands offers some of the most dramatic cerrado scenery in Brazil.

The signature waterfall is Veu de Noiva - Bridal Veil - which plunges 86 meters over a sandstone ledge into a plunge pool ringed by palms and gallery forest. The trail is short, about 800 meters from the park entrance, and the viewing platform hangs out over the cliff to give the falling water its full vertical drama. Early morning or late afternoon brings the best light for photos and the best odds of seeing the green-shouldered macaw, a Cerrado specialty that nests in the cliffs. A longer, tougher excursion - the Waterfall Circuit, a 6-kilometer hike visiting seven falls - requires a licensed guide and enough water for a day in the sun. The Aroe Jari Cavern Complex, 45 kilometers from town, contains the largest sandstone cave in South America. These excursions require guides, fees, and advance planning, but they reach landscapes most visitors to Brazil never see.

A half-hour from town lies Cidade das Pedras - the City of Stones - a field of eroded sandstone spires and walls carved by wind and water into shapes that look like a human settlement from a distance. The best time to visit is at sunrise, when the low light turns the rock orange and the horned sungem hummingbird - another cerrado specialty - emerges from the cliff crevices to feed. The road to the formations requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle in the dry season, and because the guide must retrieve the gate key from park headquarters the day before each trip, excursions must be booked ahead. Ricardo Casarin, a birding guide who runs the Casarin restaurant with his family in town, knows where to find species most visitors miss - the harpy eagle, the great potoo, the occasional jaguar that wanders from the Transpantaneira lowlands.

Cuiabanos - the residents of the state capital Cuiaba 60 kilometers downhill - come to Chapada dos Guimarães to escape their own climate. Cuiaba is consistently among the hottest cities in Brazil, with summer afternoons regularly cracking 40 degrees Celsius in the valley. The plateau is cooler by several degrees thanks to its elevation, and rivers like Rio Claro with natural swimming pools and simple riverside restaurants offer an afternoon's relief. The scene is local, informal - families, coolers, grilled fish, the occasional traveler who found the access road. Chapada dos Guimarães International Airport does not exist; visitors fly into Cuiaba's Marechal Rondon Airport and drive up, an hour on reasonable highway. The town is also a common base for birders heading to the Pantanal, the vast wetland an hour to the southwest - many Pantanal lodges stop in Chapada on the way in or out.

The plateau's ecosystem is classic cerrado - twisted trees, grasses that burn in the dry season and green up after rain, red earth that stains boots and pickup trucks alike. But because the Chapada sits at the transition between cerrado and Amazonian rainforest, its species list is unusually rich. Over 440 bird species have been recorded. Endemic hummingbirds share the plateau with toucans that drift up from the lowland forests. Orchids grow on the cliffs. Frutos do Cerrado, a shop on the edge of town, sells ice cream made from buriti palm, cagaita, pequi, and other cerrado fruits that most Brazilians have never tasted. In a country where the Amazon gets most of the ecological attention, Chapada dos Guimarães makes the case for the savanna - older, drier, quieter, and on a bright cerrado morning, almost unbearably beautiful.