Serra Gaúcha Gravel

Most people who have not been to southern Brazil do not expect colonial German and Italian hill towns, canyon landscapes that rival Patagonia, and dirt roads that connect them with almost no traffic. The Serra Gaúcha delivers all three, plus some of the best wine in South America from the Bento Gonçalves and Garibaldi region.

The route loops through the highlands of Rio Grande do Sul, connecting the canyon towns of Cambará do Sul and São Francisco de Paula with the colonial wine towns of the Vale dos Vinhedos. The terrain is hilly in a way that relentless is the right word — nothing is flat in the Serra Gaúcha, and the descents into the canyon rim are steep enough to require genuine brake control.

The Aparados da Serra National Park contains Itaimbezinho Canyon, one of the deepest in South America at 720m. The rim road provides views that make you forget you have been climbing since breakfast. This section requires some navigation — the park roads are not always marked on standard maps.

Infrastructure is good by South American standards. Small towns appear regularly, pousadas (guesthouses) are affordable, and the food is the specific Brazilian-Italian hybrid of the Serra: pasta, polenta, and grilled meat in quantities that will confuse your caloric planning. Most guesthouses serve dinner family-style.

Language: Portuguese only outside the larger towns. A few basic phrases go a long way and the locals are genuinely welcoming to foreign cyclists, a novelty in most of the interior.