Brazil's Highlands

Most of the remainder of Brazil's territory is highland. The Guiana Highlands, N of the Amazon, are partly forested, partly hot stony desert. Those that face the NW winds get heavy rainfall, but the southern slopes are arid. The rainfall, which comes during the hot season, is about 1,250mm a year. The summers are hot and the winters cool.
The Brazilian Highlands lying SE of the Amazon and NE of the River Plate Basin form a tableland of from 300 to 900m high, but here and there, mostly in SE Brazil, mountain ranges rise from it. The highest peak in southern Brazil, the Pico da Bandeira, NE of Rio de Janeiro, is 2,898m, the highest peak in all Brazil, the Pico da Neblina on the Venezuelan border, is 3,014m.
For the most part the highlands cascade sharply to the sea. South of Salvador as far as Porto Alegre the coast rises steeply to a protective barrier, the Great Escarpment. In only two places is this Escarpment breached by deeply cut river beds - those of the Rio Doce and the Rio Paraíba; and only in a few places does the land rise in a single slope making for comparatively easy communication with the interior. Along most of its course, the Great Escarpment falls to the sea in parallel steps, each step separated by the through of a valley.
The few rivers rising on the Escarpment which flow direct into the Atlantic do so precipitously and are not navigable. Most of the rivers flow deep into the interior. Those in southern Brazil rise almost within sight of the sea, but run westward through the vast interior to join the Paraná. In the central area the Escarpment rivers run away from the sea to join the Sao Francisco river, which flows northwards parallel to the coast for 2,900km, to tumble over the Paulo Afonso Falls on its eastward course to the Atlantic.
The Great Escarpment denies to most of Brazil the natural valley outflows and lines of travel from the interior to the sea. Of its rivers the Amazon alone is directly navigable for a great distance inland.