South America had gone without a wooden coaster of any shape or size until one Brazilian park came along with plans almost to nearly make up for that shortage of classic thrills in 1999. On November 27 that year, a new amusement park opened in Vinhedo, São Paulo, Brazil with their own new custom-designed scream machine that would be one of the tallest, fastest wooden coasters for anywhere on the planet. The new park opened its gates with four coasters - Katapaul, a fourth-hand Schwarzkopf shuttle looping coaster; Vurang, a rare type of enclosed spinning coaster from Intamin; and Billi-Billi, a kiddie coaster; but dominating over the coaster collection was Montezum, created by the Roller Coaster Corporation of America. This over-sized wooden coaster made its debut as the holder of the record for being the fourth-fastest wooden coaster in the world at 146 vertical feet, along with being the third-tallest wooden ride on the planet at 64 miles an hour, and brought wooden thrills to South America at last in a major way. The course for Montezum spans one side of Hopi Hari and goes beyond, running parallel to a nearby road and spanning the side of an adjacent water park. And the actual layout of the coaster is a completely custom-designed course difficult to classify as out-and-back or twister due to its simple, yet curve-packed course. With six hills, and eight curves, the coaster sends riders in Philadelphia Toboggan Company trains over a large non-inverting corkscrew hill, a speed hill, and a 400-degree helix, with curving ascents, descents, and banked curves aplenty. But the single most unique feature of Montezum are two sections of track plunging not only into a depression in the ground, but also speeding under roadway.

Hopi Hari guests ascend into Montezum's themed loading station and there thirty passengers can board one of the coaster's five-car trains and pull lap bars down into place. The train leaves the platform and rolls from the station a little ways before hitting the chain lift and joining it on its journey up the 146-foot slope directly ahead. With the theme park out to the left, water park ahead and to the right, and roads on either side of the layout, the train continues to climb over the Brazilian turf until it reaches its 15-story elevation while riders get their final panoramic view of the surroundings. Montezum begins to bear the train downwards as the track begins the steep first plunge, curving as it goes slightly to the right, and riders rush down over the white crossboards and past the teal railings of the coaster. 139 Feet below where it began, the train flies under the road, concrete whizzing over riders' heads as they're sent under two lanes and out the other side. Digging its way back out of the trench, the layout heads up the second hill - a non-inverting corkscrew hill of sorts. On the way up, the track curves to the left, then crests to let riders enjoy a moment of airtime. And for the downward trip, the rails veer rightwards to send passengers diving through a section of support structure for a curve to come. Leveling just above the ground, the speeding train pulls out of the second dive and into a third climb leading into the diving far turnaround of the course. The track banks to the right to send riders around 225 degrees and swooping out of the plunge only to climb another slope and curve to the left to meet back up with the first run of track and run parallel with the over-sized corkscrew hill. A tame dip, and then it's a slight climb into Montezum's third-largest drop: a descent that begins by curving downwards and then plunging back under the roadway. Emerging on the other side, thrill seekers are sent into the coaster's inclined helix by climbing towards the lift and heading around inside of the curvature of the first drop, and continuing on the circular trip with a dive towards the road and finally wrapping things up on a path heading away from the lift at an angle. With plenty of speed, Montezum throws the train over the top of a good-sized rabbit hop before hitting a final banked curve to the right climbing back up to the level of the brake run and station.