Campos do Jordão, a winter escapade (1)
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| A hotel at Campos do Jordão, by night, at Capivari neighborhood. |
195km (126 miles) away from São Paulo there´s the swiss style city of Campos do Jorão. Located in the highest peaks of Mantiqueira Sierra, which divides the northeast of São Paulo state and the south of Minas Gerais state, it is also halfway by car from the city of São Paulo to the city of Rio de Janeiro.
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| The Mantiqueira Mountain Range, a view close to Campos do Jordão |
The altitude makes this city the coldest in São Paulo state, and people flock here during winter to feel the cold in a country mostly used to high temperatures.
Roads linking São Paulo to Campos are very good. You can eighter take the Presidente Dutra road, which links São Paulo to Rio, and follow the signs to Campos and then take the road that climbs up the Mantiqueira by the km 139 at Dutra.
Another option is to take the Ayrton Senna/Governador Carvalho Pinto roads (named before as Trabalhadores), which is an extension of Marginal Tietê, the avenue which is at Tietê´s river margin at São Paulo. This path demands only going straight ahead from São Paulo´s east zone, taking tourists directly to the road over the Mantiqueira Sierra.
I recommend Ayrton Senna/Carvalho Pinto, because this road is more modern, speed limits are a bit higher and they have less trucks and buses when compared to Dutra, as this road links the biggest brazillian city (São Paulo) to its second (Rio de Janeiro).
Using a GPS can make this trip very easy, although signs are very clear at the roads. Both ways have tolls, both automatic and with people at the cabins, just mind of having cash. Remember only BRL, brazillian reais, are accepted. The tolls demand about 15 to 20 reais (about 5 US dollars) each way São Paulo-Campos do Jordão.
The city is also reachable from Rio, as it is almost halfway through Presidente Dutra road.
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| The Araucárias, a typical pine tree in the mountains of south Brazil. |
If you land in Brazil by the São Paulo International Airport - Guarulhos - GRU, it is even easier to rent a car and get straight away to Campos do Jordão, because both roads are linked with the airport road. Besides, by doing so, you could avoid about 30km of traffic jams inside São Paulo.
The closest airport, however, is São José dos Campos (SJK), a city 89 km away from São Paulo, also crossed by Presidente Dutra and Ayrton Senna roads. This airport operates only (and few) domestic flights, so timetable may not be convenient, depending where from Brazil you could be comming. In the other hand, GRU is the most important airport in Brazil, whith the greatest number of both international and domestic flights in Brazil.
