The reserve does not sit apart from the world. It sits above one of the most beautiful stretches of the Brazilian coast — the Costa Verde, the "green coast" — where the Atlantic Forest falls straight into a warm, island-scattered sea, and where a small colonial port called Paraty has been quietly gathering history for three hundred years. Most guests who climb the road to the seven waterfalls also come to know the country below it, and these guides are here to help.
What follows is a growing library of long, practical, honestly-written guides to the places, the food, the culture, and the wild things of this corner of Brazil. Some are about water — the trek-in beaches south of Paraty, the tropical fjord of Mamanguá, the waterfall circuit that runs far beyond our own seven falls. Some are about the town — its churches, its festivals, its cachaça, its kitchen. Some are about the forest itself, its orchids and its night skies. All of them are written for someone staying a while and wanting to understand where they are, rather than tick a list.
Every photograph on these pages is a real image of this real place, shared by photographers through Wikimedia Commons and credited in full. The words are ours. If you are still deciding when to come, our best-time-to-visit guide and the getting-there guide are the practical starting points; when you are ready, you can plan a stay above the falls and use the rest of this library to fill the days around it.
