When we are confronted with the enormous cavern, largely lined with moss and lichens, we reconfirm how much Paraná is prodigal in phenomena and natural exuberances.
The one that haunted us could barely be compared with the riverine and surreal exponent of the Iguaçu waterfalls also in Paraná.
However, it had its own mysterious charm, that of a large cave opened in the Earth, over time, by a river named to match, the Quebra Pedra.
On that day, as for many years, its flow fell from a height of 30 meters. He fell, tumbling, between mossy slabs.
For a lagoon with a bed made of the same sandstone carved by the river and a beach look.
The beams of light that penetrated through the opening at the top gave the feeling that God was pointing it.
As a whole, the place was known as Buraco do Padre.
The historical genesis of the name, shared by the surrounding Campos Gerais, added to it an imaginary period that dazzled us twice over.
The Campos Gerais of Paraná in the Colonial Beginnings of Brazil
Living it means going back to the middle of the 150th century, around XNUMX years since Pedro Alvares Cabral landed on the coast of Porto Seguro.
At the turn of the XNUMXth century, in present-day Paraná, the Portuguese towns of Paranaguá stood out, with the Ilha do Mel offshore, and from Nª Srª da Luz dos Pinhais which evolved into the contemporary Curitiba.
Shortly afterwards, the bandeirantes exploring the unknown interior discovered gold. In no time, Paraná attracted a horde of explorers determined to explore and prosper.
As almost always happened, they were accompanied by Jesuits tasked with converting the natives to the Christianity, to supervise and bless their submission to the invaders.
The Carmelites followed in the footsteps of the Jesuits. Soon, Portuguese religious people were seen in the four corners of Campos Gerais, in proselytizing approaches to indigenous villages.
Often, in remote places prone to retreat and prayer, as was the case of the cave on the Quebra Pedra river.
From the Concession of Sesmarias to the Profusion of Farms and Sites
The Portuguese Crown transferred the sesmarias model to Brazil.
The granting of sesmarias in Campos Gerais do Paraná resulted in a multiplicity of farms and farms (50 and 125, respectively, in 1772).
A nobleman already born in São Paulo was appointed general administrator of these parts. Faced with the difficulty of forcing indigenous people to do field work, Pedro Taques de Almeida – that was his grace – validated the acquisition of slaves from Africa.
The population of Campos Gerais began to be made up of farmer settlers and, in much greater numbers, indigenous slaves, blacks and their mixed race.
The social context of the region has become more complex.
On the Edge of Farms, Mining Led by the Bandeirantes
In a reality parallel to that of the farms, the bandeirantes took over mining centers lacking slave labor, mules and carrying horses.
Able to provide them, breeders further south got used to having them follow north, via the Caminho Real de Viamão and various alternative routes.
All these routes converged on the same fair town, Sorocaba, located in the southeast of São Paulo.
Almost all came from what is now Rio Grande do Sul, where the plains were vast, covered in lush pasture, perfect for raising horses.
Troops and Tropeiros: Brazilian suppliers of Mules and Horses
The men responsible for taking them to Sorocaba were troops, similar to North American cowboys, responsible for taking care of the horses and protecting them.
One of the concerns that guided the drovers was that, along the route, the animals could graze, grow stronger and gain value.
Now, less flat and vast than the Gauchos, but rainy, furrowed by rivers and dotted with farms that served as livestock stations, the lands of Campos Gerais soon proved to be ideal.
Which takes us back to Buraco do Padre.
The Tropeira Route via Quebra-Pedra River and Buraco do Padre
It is estimated that one of the routes chosen by the tropeiros passed through the Quebra-Pedra river.
Now, stories abounded from the tropeiros that, when they reached the top of the cave, they often saw the Jesuit priests who evangelized the indigenous people, in prayer.
More concerned with fluency than eloquence, the tropeiros popularized the term Buraco do Padre.
A short distance away, a tight gap between two mossy cliffs where recent fractures reveal scarlet slabs, preserves a name without the same historical basis.
In recent times, people chose it to match the Buraco do Padre. It's Fenda da Freira.
These two geological prodigies form one of the neighboring attractions of Ponta Grossa, one of the three main cities of Campos Gerais.
Vila Velha and the Natural Park full of Geological Sculptures
35km to the southwest, we find another, similar and much larger park, the Vila Velha State Park. Protected since 1966, this other geological domain concentrates, in its 18km2, a profusion of erosive sculptures in the most different forms: tortoise, sphinx, Indian head and the like.
There are still plenty of walls and towers that, as a whole, resemble a medieval village and inspired the title Vila Velha.
Due to its monumentality, the “Cup” became the park’s trademark and the postcard of the Ponta Grossa region.
In a way, it reminds us of a Grail.
What enriches the lithic-religious imaginary of these parts and opens the way to more northern demands.
We spent the night in Ponta Grossa. The next morning, we followed the main tropeira route through Campos Gerais. We went up to the neighboring city of Castro.
From Pouso do Iapó to the City of Castro
The village was founded in 1778, as an evolution of the Pouso do Iapó farm and village, built 74 years earlier, on a bank of the river of the same name, as a pioneer sesmaria in the region.
In 1750, Pouso do Iapó was donated to the Carmelite Fathers.
They added two new buildings that served as shelters for the slaves that (unlike the other farmers) they kept free.
Later, it became known as the Capão Alto farm.
The Tripartite Conflict between Indigenous Peoples, Portuguese and Spanish Rivals
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, part of the indigenous people remained to be appeased, let alone converted.
How Roland Joffé portrayed in ”The mission”, the bandeirantes of São Paulo persecuted and enslaved them.
Obsessed with this aim, they went so far as to destroy religious missions. As if that wasn't enough, Spanish colonial rivals disputed them.
Like the Portuguese bandeirantes, in addition to slaves, Spain sought indigenous lands outside the respective border of the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Successive Spanish expeditions explored that corner of the New World, from the southern coast of Vera Cruz to Asunción, in Paraguay. And beyond.
The crowned Indians, in particular, patrolled the immense Guartelá pass, said to be the 7th longest pass on the face of the Earth. They often attacked the drovers crossing the Iapó and Tibagi rivers.
When Pouso do Iapó became a village led by experienced military personnel, they finally stopped feeling on their own.
The Baptism of Castro in Honor of a Portuguese Minister
At the end of the XNUMXth century, however, called Vila Sant'Ana do Iapó, it was promoted to Castro.
With this renaming, the city paid homage to Martinho de Melo Castro, a minister of Overseas Affairs during the reigns of D. José I and Dª Maria I who was notable for his reforms in the Portuguese colonial system.
The event narrated in the genesis of the name change is also a curious episode.
At one point, Martinho de Melo Castro visited the Limoeiro political prison, in Lisbon. There he came across a man called Captain Manoel Gonçalves Guimarães, who allegedly got rich in Brazil smuggling gold.
Now, upon seeing the minister, Manoel Guimarães knelt down and begged for his freedom. To achieve this, he told the minister that he lived in a town in Brazil that was developing but without a king or roque and that crimes, whatever they were, were multiplying.
He also promised that, if the minister granted him his freedom, he would return, he would try to manage the town well in order to elevate it to the town that he would name after the minister. Martinho de Melo Castro felt honored by the promise.
In such a way that caused the captain to be released.
Grateful, Manoel Guimarães returned to Sant'Ana do Iapó. On his return, he drew up a plan and the necessary contacts with officials from Paranaguá that led to the promotion of the village to Vila de Castro.
The Decline of Tropeirismo and a New Immigration
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, finally, modernity won over the drovers and their troops. Tropeirismo persists in the culture of the Campos Gerais region.
In local expressions, gastronomy, costumes and much more. Castro and Fazenda Capão Alto dedicate to them unavoidable museums that we are privileged to visit.
The history of the region followed its post-tropeiro course.
Castrolanda: Holland transposed to the Interior of Paraná
With the end of 2nd World War, at a time when Brazil still lacked labor for its endless lands and millions of Europeans were eager to start their lives over, Campos Gerais welcomed thousands of Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, German and Italian immigrants, among others .
On the outskirts of Castro, we were surprised by one of its most emblematic “new” towns, Castrolanda, built by Dutch people with no space to develop their projects. agricultural, in the Netherlands.
In the middle of Brazil, we find ourselves in an unexpected Brazilian Kinkderdijk, dotted with Friesian cows that graze among Paraná araucaria trees, a characteristic mill and a museum full of Dutch artefacts.
Five Netherlands can fit in tiny Paraná.
Since the discovery by the Europeans, Tropeirismo outside, until the present day, Paraná has welcomed a whole world.
