Campos do Jordao is the one place in this library where Brazilians go to be cold. At about 1,628 metres in the Serra da Mantiqueira between Sao Paulo and Rio, it is the highest city in Brazil, it gets frost and occasionally a sub-zero night, and its high season is JULY. Everything about the place follows from that inversion: the chocolate shops, the fondue restaurants, the fireplaces, and a classical music festival that has run every winter since 1970.
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What Is Here
THE ARCHITECTURE IS A TWENTIETH CENTURY COSTUME AND THE POST WILL SAY SO. The second image is Vila Capivari at night, and those Swiss and Bavarian frontages are theme rather than heritage: Campos do Jordao was developed as a sanatorium town for tuberculosis patients in the early twentieth century because of its dry mountain air, and the alpine look was applied later and deliberately to sell a European idea of altitude. Knowing that does not spoil it. It is a pleasant, well-kept, slightly absurd resort village, and treating it as a genuine old mountain town is the only way to be disappointed by it.
WHAT IS GENUINELY RARE HERE IS THE FOREST, AND MOST VISITORS WALK PAST IT. The Horto Florestal, now the Parque Estadual de Campos do Jordao, holds ARAUCARIA ANGUSTIFOLIA, the Parana pine: a candelabra-shaped conifer endemic to southern Brazil, which once covered vast areas and has lost the overwhelming majority of its range to logging and clearance. It is a threatened species and this is one of the better places to stand in a stand of it. The park also has waterfalls, trails and an outside chance of seeing a muriqui monkey.
PEDRA DO BAU IS THE REAL MOUNTAIN AND IT IS NOT IN THIS TOWN. The first image is it, in cloud. The granite monolith reaches about 1,950 metres and sits in SAO BENTO DO SAPUCAI, the neighbouring municipality roughly an hour away by road, which matters for planning. Getting to the top involves a steep approach and then fixed stairs and handrails bolted to exposed rock. It is a genuine scramble with real exposure rather than a viewpoint you drive to, and in cloud or wet conditions it should be left alone.
THE FESTIVAL DE INVERNO IS THE REASON TO COME IN JULY AND THE REASON NOT TO. Running since 1970, it is one of Latin America's major classical music festivals, centred on the Auditorio Claudio Santoro, with concerts through the month and many of them free or cheap. It also fills every room in the region at the highest prices of the year. Either plan around it deliberately or avoid July entirely; there is no middle option.
AND THE QUIETER SET PIECES. The Palacio Boa Vista is the Sao Paulo state governor's winter residence, open as a museum with a serious Brazilian art collection. The Morro do Elefante has a chairlift and a view. The Ducha de Prata is a small cascade that is firmly in the category of things to see because you are passing. The third image is the drive in, which is one of the better mountain roads in Brazil and is covered below.
When to Go
June to August is high season, which is the inversion to hold on to. Cold, clear, crowded and expensive, with July the peak in every sense. Daytime temperatures in the mid teens, nights near or below freezing, and frost on the grass in the morning.
April, May and September are the best value and arguably the best visit: cool and clear, the forest at its best, the roads quiet and the prices ordinary.
December to March is the Brazilian summer and here that means WARM DAYS AND HEAVY AFTERNOON RAIN, in the low to mid twenties, with cloud sitting on the mountains for days at a time. The town is green and quiet; Pedra do Bau is frequently in cloud.
There is no snow. People expect it and it essentially does not happen. What happens is frost.
Getting There
There is no airport and no train, and the road is the experience. Sao Paulo is about two and a half to three hours by road, Sao Jose dos Campos roughly an hour and a half, and Rio de Janeiro around four and a half. Coaches run from Sao Paulo's Tiete terminal.
The third image shows the climb: the road up from the Paraiba valley gains over a thousand metres in a series of tight bends, and it is both beautiful and demanding. IN WINTER IT CARRIES FOG AND IN SUMMER IT CARRIES RAIN, and a hire car driven by somebody unused to mountain roads in cloud is the likeliest thing to go wrong on this trip. Drive it in daylight.
In town you can walk Capivari and little else. The town is strung out over several kilometres between Abernessia, Jaguaribe and Capivari, so a car, taxis or the little tourist train are how people move between them. For Pedra do Bau you need a car or an organised transfer.
The Campos do Jordao Packing List
A genuine mountain winter inside the tropics, big day-to-night swings, strong high-altitude sun and heavy summer rain.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the most useful single thing you can bring here, because the daily swing is enormous: a July morning near freezing, an afternoon in the high teens in strong sun at altitude, and an evening back down to two or three degrees. Wool handles that range in one layer where anything else means carrying two. From June to August add a heavyweight merino base layer and treat it as the foundation of the trip rather than a contingency.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece as the mid layer in every season, since even a January evening here is cool, and from May to September a Columbia Powder Lite insulated jacket over it, because the winter test in this town is sitting outside a cafe or standing in a concert queue rather than walking.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, which in the December to March rains is essential and in winter doubles as the wind shell on the mountain.
Walking shoes with grip for the park trails and for Pedra do Bau, which has polished rock and fixed stairs and is no place for smooth soles.
A merino beanie, which is the item visitors most often arrive without and most want by the second evening.
Not linked and worth packing: GLOVES, genuinely, for a July morning in Brazil; SUNSCREEN, because ultraviolet at 1,600 metres is stronger than the temperature implies and people burn in cold air without noticing; CASH IN REAIS for the smaller places and the park entry; AND A LAYER YOU CAN CARRY, since you will take one off by eleven and want it back by five.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Campos do Jordao
Emergency numbers: 190 for police, 192 for ambulance and 193 for fire, all free from any phone. 193 is also the number for a mountain rescue, and the Sao Paulo state fire service runs the rescue teams that work Pedra do Bau and the Mantiqueira trails.
THE COLD IS THE HAZARD THAT CATCHES PEOPLE, AND IT CATCHES THEM BECAUSE THIS IS BRAZIL. Visitors arrive from Sao Paulo or Rio with a jumper, having mentally filed the destination under warm country, and find a night near freezing at altitude. That is uncomfortable for most people and genuinely risky for anybody elderly, unwell or planning to be outdoors after dark, and Brazilian accommodation in this price bracket is often UNHEATED, with a fireplace in the lounge and nothing in the bedroom. Check whether your room has heating before you book a July trip. PEDRA DO BAU IS THE SERIOUS PHYSICAL RISK HERE: fixed stairs and handrails on exposed granite, a long drop, and conditions that change fast when cloud comes in. It is a guided activity for anybody without scrambling experience, it should not be attempted in rain or cloud, and people have died on it. THE MOUNTAIN ROADS are the other one, with fog in winter, heavy rain in summer, tight bends and local drivers who know them far better than you do; drive in daylight and slowly. ALTITUDE IS NOT A PROBLEM at 1,628 metres, and nobody needs to plan for altitude sickness. ULTRAVIOLET IS STRONGER THAN IT FEELS, which is the classic mountain mistake of burning in cold air. AND ON CRIME, this is one of the lowest-risk places in Brazil a visitor can be: a small, prosperous, heavily policed resort town where the national advice below is background rather than daily practice.
Theft is the realistic risk in Brazil and the FCDO is specific enough to be useful. Robberies are common in many cities and particularly on buses, thieves target mobile phones and the FCDO names the window BETWEEN 4PM AND 9PM, and attackers may be armed. THE ADVICE IS NOT TO RESIST: hand over valuables rather than arguing with someone who may be armed and under the influence. Thefts are especially common on public beaches, including ARRASTOES, where a large group runs through a stretch of beach grabbing everything, so take nothing to the beach you would mind losing and DO NOT GO ON TO CITY BEACHES AFTER DARK. And the FCDO is unambiguous about FAVELAS: avoid all of them, including favela tours marketed to tourists and any accommodation, restaurant or bar advertised as being inside one, and check that a GPS route is not taking you through one, because tourists have been shot after entering by accident. The geography is worth stating precisely, because importing a city warning into a mountain town would be the error. The FCDO's named sections are RIO DE JANEIRO, SAO PAULO, BRASILIA and NORTH-EAST BRAZIL. The SAO PAULO section concerns the city, which is two and a half hours away down the mountain; this town is in Sao Paulo STATE and is not what that section describes. What applies here is the national advice, and in a town of this kind the realistic application is the bus journey in and out rather than the streets of Capivari.
UK FCDO: there are no advised-against areas in mainland Brazilian cities, and the one place the FCDO advises against all but essential travel is RIVER TRAVEL ON SPECIFIC AMAZON STRETCHES: along the Amazon west of Codajas and east of Belem do Solimoes in Amazonas State, along any part of the Itaquai or Japura rivers, and along the Rio Negro north or west of Barcelos, because of criminal activity in the border country Brazil shares with Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. NOTE THAT BELEM DO SOLIMOES IS A TOWN IN AMAZONAS AND NOT THE CITY OF BELEM IN PARA, which is 1,500km east and is not named. Four areas have their own sections covering ordinary crime rather than advice against travel: RIO DE JANEIRO, SAO PAULO, BRASILIA, where the FCDO names the central bus station area for theft, and NORTH-EAST BRAZIL, where it names theft from hotel and motel rooms and muggings, and advises using taxis after sunset rather than walking and avoiding quiet or deserted areas.
US State Department travel advisory: the Brazil advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/brazil, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: Campos do Jordao has a general hospital with an emergency department, and the larger referral hospitals are in Sao Jose dos Campos and Taubate, roughly an hour and a half away down the mountain, with Sao Paulo the centre for anything major. That distance is the reason to take a mountain injury seriously here rather than waiting to see how it feels. Dial 192 for an ambulance and 193 for mountain rescue. Brazil has no reciprocal health agreement with the UK or the United States, so insurance with medical cover and repatriation is essential. Private hospitals in the big cities are genuinely good and expensive and will want payment or an insurance guarantee before treating you; the public SUS system will treat an emergency and is slower and more variable. A farmacia handles minor problems. TAP WATER IS TREATED AND GENERALLY SAFE IN THE MAJOR CITIES including Brasilia, Porto Alegre and Fortaleza, though most Brazilians drink filtered and bottled is universal. DENGUE IS THE REAL HEALTH RISK and Brazil has large annual epidemics, with chikungunya and Zika also present; the mosquito that carries all three bites BY DAY, so repellent is a daytime measure. YELLOW FEVER VACCINATION is recommended for much of the country and some onward countries require a certificate if you have been here, so check before you travel rather than at the border. At this altitude the dengue risk is markedly lower than on the coast, though it is present in the valleys you drive through.
Official health authority: the Brazilian Ministry of Health. covers the national health service and the current dengue situation, which varies sharply by state and altitude
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Brasilia.
Official tourism authority: Visit Brasil, the national tourism board. covers Brazil nationally, and the municipal tourism office publishes the Festival de Inverno programme and the state park opening hours, both of which decide what a July visit costs and what is open
Takeaways
Winter is the high season. July is the peak. Pack for cold, in Brazil.
Check your room has heating. Many here do not.
Pedra do Bau is an hour away and is a real scramble, not a viewpoint.
The alpine architecture is twentieth century theme. The araucaria is not.
Solo women safety assessment: Campos do Jordao is probably the easiest place in Brazil to travel alone. It is a small, prosperous, heavily policed mountain resort whose visitors are Brazilian families, couples and concert audiences, Vila Capivari is busy and well lit in the evening, and eating alone in a fondue restaurant or a cafe is completely ordinary. Brazil's national advice is background here rather than daily practice, and the honest application of it is the coach journey in and out rather than the streets of the town; the FCDO's Sao Paulo section describes the city two and a half hours down the mountain and not this place. THE RISKS HERE ARE MOUNTAIN RISKS AND THE COLD. A July night near freezing catches out visitors who mentally filed Brazil as warm, and accommodation at this price often has no bedroom heating at all, which is worth confirming before booking. Pedra do Bau is the one genuinely dangerous activity in reach: fixed stairs and handrails on exposed granite with a long drop, conditions that change when cloud arrives, and a history of fatalities, so it is a guided outing for anybody without scrambling experience and not one to attempt in cloud or rain. The mountain roads carry fog in winter and heavy rain in summer, so drive them in daylight. Ultraviolet at 1,600 metres burns people who feel cold. And the nearest major hospitals are an hour and a half down the mountain, which is the reason not to walk off an injury here. 190 REACHES POLICE, 192 AMBULANCE AND 193 FIRE AND MOUNTAIN RESCUE.
Reading On
Campos do Jordao has one obvious pairing in this library and it is not a coastal one. The Gramado packing list covers the other Brazilian hill town that built itself an alpine identity, 1,100km south in Rio Grande do Sul, and reading the two together is the best way to understand what this kind of Brazilian resort actually is. Down the mountain, the Sao Paulo packing list covers the city two and a half hours away that most visitors come from, and the Rio de Janeiro packing list the other. For more highland Brazil, the Ouro Preto packing list covers the colonial mining town in the Minas Gerais hills and the Belo Horizonte packing list that state's capital. South, the Curitiba packing list covers the planned city on the Parana plateau. For the country, the Brazil travel guide for women carries the regions, the transport and the seasons in full. For why one wool layer beats two of anything else on a mountain with a twenty degree daily swing, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
