Campo Novo do Parecis

After lunch, cross into Mato Grosso. The Posto Planalto, at BR-364 km 154 in Campo de Júlio, is a fuel stop on the MT side of the border.

Shortly before Campo Novo do Parecis, the route passes through the Terra Indígena Utiariti, where a passage fee is collected at a manned checkpoint on behalf of the Parecis people. The toll dates from the paving of the MT-235, the road linking Campo Novo do Parecis to Sapezal, which cuts through the reserve's 63 kilometres. The Parecis — whose territory Rondon traversed between 1907 and 1915, and whose lands hosted a Jesuit mission and boarding school from the 1940s through the 1970s — have maintained the right to collect the fee under a formal agreement with FUNAI. It is a small sum and the process is straightforward; have cash ready.

Arrival: Campo Novo do Parecis

Campo Novo do Parecis is a planned agricultural city set on the Chapada dos Parecis, the vast plateau that stretches across northwestern Mato Grosso. Its history is recent and straightforward: Rondon passed through in 1907 on his way to Salto Utiariti, and in January 1914 Theodore Roosevelt rode through the same corridor alongside Rondon during his Amazonian expedition, but neither man stopped to found a town. Organised settlement came only in the 1970s, when migrant families from the southern states arrived to work the plateau's famously productive red clay soils. The municipality wasn't formally established until 1988 — carved out from distant Diamantino — and today it is one of Brazil's leading producers of sunflower, popcorn corn, and soy.

The city itself is geometrically laid out on the plateau, where the horizon seems to extend in every direction without interruption. It functions primarily as a service hub for the surrounding agricultural operations, but it also serves as the gateway to the Chapada's natural attractions — among them the Salto Utiariti, a 98-metre waterfall on the Rio Papagaio, roughly 95 kilometres to the north, inside the Parecis indigenous territory. The name Utiariti means "place of wise people" in the Parecis language, and the site carries the traces of the Jesuit mission and Rondon's telegraph work alongside its natural drama.

Settle in for the evening. The drive from Cacoal has been long and the plateau air, at altitude, carries a freshness that is a relief after the lowland heat.