Brasília and the Planalto Central - The Rough Guide to Brazil - page 427

HIRING A GUIDE IN THE PARQUE NACIONAL DAS EMAS
You'll need to hire a local guide to explore the park. Together with the transport they arrange,
this will set you back between R$100 and R$200 a day depending how many people are in
your group; the more the cheaper. Both Mineiros and Chapadão do Céu have a highly
organized association of local guides, who should be your first port of call; they will quote
you a price and take care of the formalities with IBAMA, the national parks authority, such as
registering entry and exit and paying the R$13 entrance fee (you also have to pay your
guide's entrance fee).
You will rarely be able to set out until the following day, as cars and drivers have to be found.
Given the time it will take to reach the park itself, your best bet is to complete the formalities
the day before and set off at dawn the next day.
Mineiros Guides can be located through the Centro de
Atendimento ao Turista (CAT) at Av Alessandro Marchió
169 ( T 64 3661 0006, E [e-mail]).

6

Chapadão do Céu The guides' association (SETA) is on
Av Netuno ( T 64 3634 1119).

Parque Nacional das Emas
Portão do Bandeira entrance on unsurfaced road, 30km northwest of Chapadão do Céu; Portão do Jacuba entrance on BR-359/GO-341,
88km southwest of Mineiros • Daily 8am-6pm (until 9pm during the period of termite luminescence) • R$13 • T 64 3929 6000
Down in the southwestern corner of Goiás state, the Parque Nacional das Emas is a
cerrado reserve that was once the domain of zoologists and botanists but is gradually
opening up to regular tourism. Located in the central Brazilian highlands near the
Mato Grosso do Sul border, the park consists of some 1300 square kilometres of fairly
pristine cerrado , mostly open grasslands pocked by thousands of termite hills, but with
occasional clumps of savannah forest. While it lacks the scenic grandeur of Chapada
dos Veadeiros, thanks to its relative isolation the reserve is one of the last places where
you can find cerrado wildlife in some abundance, supporting an enormous population
off emas (South American rheas) and also large herds of veado-campeiro deer, often
shadowed by the solitary lobo guará (the maned wolf ); all are more easily spotted here
than anywhere else in Brazil. The Emas park is also famous for its wide range of
variously coloured and extremely large termite mounds , which are used by coruja-do-
campo owls as lookout posts dotted across the flat plain, and are a good source of food
for bandeira anteaters. Due to the activity of larvae living inside them, some of the
anthills glow phosphorescently green and blue - an amazing sight on a dark night,
though you can only catch it in October, when conditions are right.
Within the park you are restricted to set trails - although here they traverse most of
the park - and camping is not permitted. Beware of mucuim , irritating tiny ticks that
jump onto legs and leave clumps of fantastically itchy reddish bites; wearing long
trousers is your best defence.
ARRIVAL AND GETTING AROUND PARQUE NACIONAL DAS EMAS

By bus It's easy to get to the area by bus from Brasília and
Goiânia, but a bit of a logistical challenge once you're here:
without a car distances are long, local buses are almost
nonexistent, and you'll have to rely on a guide's contacts to

get around. Mineiros is connected by bus to Brasília
(5 daily; 9hr) and Goiânia (4 daily; 6hr 30min), and there
are also buses from Goiânia to Chapadão (1 daily; 10hr).

ACCOMMODATION AND EATING
As there is no accommodation in the park itself, you'll have to base yourself in the small towns of Mineiros or Chapadão
do Céu , though both are a considerable distance from the park; the former, geared more to visitors and with a population
of around 50,000, is unfortunately 85km away. The latter, only 27km from the park, is more rustic, and much smaller with
just over 5000 inhabitants. Although there aren't many accommodation options, all are perfectly adequate and cheap. As
for dining , you'll be limited to a couple of churrascarias in each town, plus the hotel restaurants - not haute cuisine , but
satisfying after a day's hiking.