Northern and western Minas Gerais in Brazil

The population thins out in Northern Minas and as it stretches into the sertão backlands and the state of Bahia, the landscape gets ever more arid. Water mostly comes from the river São Francisco, a blue streak cutting through the beiges and browns of the semi-desert. Few tourists, however, get further than the colonial mining town of Diamantina, recently declared a World Heritage Site and every bit as pretty as its more famous contemporaries to the south. There are extensive tracts of beautiful cerrado forest towards the border with Goiás, parts of it protected by the Serra do Cipó and Grande Sertão Veredas national parks. Western Minas is less visited still, yet there are some beautiful stretches of forest in the Serra da Canastra, which can be visited on the way to or from Mato Grosso or Goiás.