CHASING WATERFALLS IN THE BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS

Deep in the heart of Brazil, a thousand miles from the nearest beach, lies Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, a motorcyclist's paradise in the highlands with a supernatural character steeped in local legend. I picked up a Royal Enfield Himalayan in the city of Brasilia, 150 miles south of the park, and set off in search of the Chapada's secrets.

- Doug Loynes

It's fitting that any trip to the ethereal Chapada starts in Brasilia, a city so meticulously designed in the modernist tradition, with its clean lines and curved edges, that it could have crash-landed on the spaceport set of a sci-fi movie. Locals joke that Brasilia is so well planned that anywhere in the city is 20 minutes or less away and that was true of my taxi ride from the airport to Galpao 17, a popular bikers' haunt on the outskirts of the city where live music plays and drinks flow.

Think Star Wars' Mos Eisley, but without the scum and villainy.

When I arrived at the bar, Flávio Bressan was just finishing attaching a set of heavy panniers to the flanks of an immaculate 2021 Royal Enfield Himalayan. Something of a local legend, Bressan is a motorcycling enthusiast and the founder of Projeto Estradas Amazônicas, an ambitious project which aims to map all the Amazon region's underexplored roads. After chatting about bikes and the best routes to and from the Chapada, Bressan handed me the Himalayan's keys and waved me onto the highway.

Riding the BR-010, Brasilia's cityscape soon fell away, replaced by rolling meadows and pastureland as the highway penetrated further into the interior. A couple of hours later, I passed through the town of Alto Paraíso de Goiás, the gateway to the Chapada, where the real fun began. Heading west out of town, I found myself cutting through the cerrado, the Brazilian savannah, on a dramatic highway that could easily pass for one of the more iconic stretches of Route 66 were it not for the hazard signs warning of roaming anteaters and prowling maned wolves. I opened the throttle on the empty straights, letting the Himalayan rip through the stunning scenery with a growl that would send even the most fearsome wolves scuttling for cover.