• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Street Smart Brazil

We teach smart Portuguese

  • Contact
  • My Account
  • Cart
  • Policies
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Disclaimer
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Speak Portuguese With Ease
  • Home
  • About
  • Shop for Lessons
  • Starter Kit
  • Testimonials
  • Resources
  • Blog
Visiting Brazil: Serra da Canastra

Visiting Brazil: Serra da Canastra

posted on June 3, 2015

Article about Serra da Canastra to visit Brazil off the beaten path

If you’ll be visiting Brazil, it’s good to know about some options that are literally off the beaten path. The Serra da Canastra is one of Brazil’s most important national parks, located in the southern part of Minas Gerais state, about 200 miles from its capital, Belo Horizonte. The park gets its name from its shape, said to look like a chest or trunk (although today “canastra” has come to mean wicker basket in Brazilian Portuguese). “Serra”, on the other hand, means mountain range.

On top of the Canastra plateau lies the source of the longest Brazilian river entirely inside Brazil, the Rio São Francisco. What starts in the park eventually empties out into the Atlantic ocean, almost 2,000 miles away, in the Northeast. Less than 10 miles from the river’s source, the water picks up strength in the form of the park’s famous 600-foot waterfall (one of several), called Casca d’Anta.

Visiting Brazil - Views of Serra da Canastra

If you go for more than a quick look around and a photo-op under the waterfall, it’s helpful to also know the Serra da Canastra’s tropical grassland savanna, forests, and two plateaus stretch out for over 71,000 hectares and require almost one week of traversing for a serious visit. After all, there will need to be time set aside to try and catch a glimpse of some of the local “residents”. Those include: Maned wolves (the largest canines in South America; a cross between a fox and a wolf), giant anteaters, Canastra armadillos, and the Brazilian merganser (one of the most threatened bird species in the world), among many other types of animals.

Below, you can see a news report (in Portuguese) where the reporter teams up with biologists and park rangers to locate some of the flora and fauna.

Before you take off to Brazil, consider learning some basic Portuguese. It will make your life much easier during the trip. It will also allow you to get more out of Brazil and create great relationships there.

You can start by downloading our free Travel Portuguese lesson.

Then, to make sure you speak Portuguese with confidence in Brazil, you can learn and practice with us. Enjoy the convenience of having your own private Street Smart Brazil tutor via video meetings. It is a simple and effective way to learn Portuguese and get the best out of your trip.

Related Posts:

  • Valentine’s Day in Brazil - Dia dos Namorados
  • Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: Words beginning in PS
  • Shopping vocabulary in Portuguese

About Adam Lee

Adam is a writer and a researcher who has studied Brazilian culture for over a decade and created several Brazil-themed blogs going back to 2008. Having taught himself Portuguese, he put it to practical use by spending three years doing Brazil on a budget (and living in favelas), from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon.

He now resides in Lisbon, Portugal, developing a startup and dreaming about having a beachside B&B in the Northeast of Brazil.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Want to see your pic by your comment? Get a free custom avatar at Gravatar.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Brazil
  • Brazilian music
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Business Culture
  • Culture and History
  • Flashcards
  • Food
  • Grammar
  • Idiomatic Expressions
  • Learning Languages
  • Pronunciation
  • Resources
  • Video lessons
  • Visiting Brazil
  • Vocabulary

Schedule a Trial Session

Testimonials

I am really happy that I chose Street Smart Brazil to learn Brazilian Portuguese. My teacher is fantastic and I am always looking forward to my next lesson. I am very impressed of the amount of mater… Read more
Deneb
I absolutely love learning Portuguese with Street Smart Brazil! Top four strengths of Street Smart Brazil:
  • A perfect combo of order and flexibility: you have a roadmap of the learning process, you… Read more
Togzhan
Street Smart Brazil has excellent and flexible training. It was able to meet our needs for ongoing Portuguese study. They also are constantly evolving their offerings which keep me involved and learn… Read more
Doran
I always wanted to learn a second language, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t manage to do it on my own. Much to my surprise, after learning with Street Smart Brazil, I find myself speaking in sente… Read more
Michael

Find Resources

Make your learning fun and easy with good resources.
Learn More

51 Portuguese Idioms – Speak Like a Brazilian

You will learn each expression inside a real-life context: everyday situations that could happen to any of us.
Purchase Now >

Recent Posts

  • Brazilian Books You Need on Your Bookshelf
  • How to use ONDE and AONDE in Portuguese
  • Master Question Words in Portuguese: O que, Que, Qual
  • Meio or Meia? How to say KIND OF in Portuguese
  • Family Vocabulary in Portuguese

Search

Cart

Classes

  • Trial Lesson
  • One-on-One Portuguese Lessons via Video Meetings – Subscription
  • One-on-One Portuguese Lessons via Video Meetings – Packages
  • Celpe-Bras Prep Classes with Street Smart Brazil

Footer Subscribe

Books

  • 51 Portuguese Idioms
  • Master the Word MESMO in Portuguese

Footer Video CTA

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get all the new video lessons

Subscribe

https://youtu.be/UJPrLOdKYQQ

Footer Full CTA

Book a Trial Lesson today to get started.

Get Started Now

Footer CTA

Street Smart Brazil

  • About
  • Shop For a Portuguese Class
  • Testimonials
  • Blog

Portuguese Classes

  • Trial Lesson
  • One-on-One Portuguese Lessons via Video Meetings – Subscription
  • One-on-One Portuguese Lessons via Video Meetings – Packages
  • Celpe-Bras Prep Classes with Street Smart Brazil

Books

  • 51 Portuguese Idioms
  • Master the Word MESMO in Portuguese


Street Smart Brazil, LLC

phone 415.573.8180
email info@streetsmartbrazil.com
Oakland, California

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Disclaimer
  • Sitemap

© 2014–2023 Street Smart Brazil, All Rights Reserved.