Nestling in the northwest corner of the state, 165km from Rio, between the borders of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, the Parque Nacional do Itatiaia (R$3 entrance) is the oldest national park in Brazil, founded in 1937 and covering 120 square kilometres of the Mantigueira mountain range. People come here to climb – favourites are the Pico das Agulhas Negras (2787m) and the Pico de Prateleira (2540m) – and the park is also an important nature reserve.

The park comprises waterfalls, primary forest, wildlife and orchids – but tragically a fire in 1988 ravaged some twenty percent of the park's area. In the sections affected by the fire, forest and pasture land were devastated, rare orchids and native conifers (Podocarpus lamperti and Araucaria angustifolia) destroyed; the fire reached areas of the Serra da Mantigueira, 2500m above sea level, wiping out forty kilometres of mountain pathways. In the areas most favoured by biologists, who come to study the rich fauna and flora, the once-beautiful alpine scenery now resembles a lunar landscape. Also severely affected were the many natural springs and streams that combine to form the Bonito, Preto, Pirapitinga and Palmital rivers; these supply the massive hydrographic basin of the Paraíba plate, giving much-needed oxygenation to the Paraíba watercourse in one of its most polluted stretches. The situation is gradually improving, but ecologists reckon that it will still take many more years to repair this environmental disaster. For the casual walker, however, there's still plenty of unaffected park to be seen.