Themed route
Trade the sun for the half-light: the region's caves and grottoes, from the monumental chambers of Terra Ronca to the shafts of light that fall through the skylights. Always with a guide — a cave is a fragile environment, dark and with no signal.
8 attractions on this route — refine with the filter below.
The most imposing cave in the Parque Estadual de Terra Ronca: the entrance portal is 96 m high by 120 m wide, and the Rio da Lapa runs through the chambers — at one point the water reaches waist height and is crossed with the aid of a fixed rope. Inside is the Salão dos Namorados, with enormous stalactites and stalagmites, and the altar where the Bom Jesus da Lapa pilgrimage takes place on 5 and 6 August.
One of the richest caves in Brazil for speleothems, inside the Parque Estadual de Terra Ronca, with over 20 km of passages and the Rio São Mateus running through it. The original entrance collapsed millennia ago, so you enter through a narrow, steep fissure, descending about 5 m on a rope. Inside, monumental chambers open up — such as the Salão dos Travertinos Gigantes, the Salão das Agulhas, and the Salão das Pérolas — lined with white stalactites, calcite flowers, and multicolored travertine pools.
The most extreme of the Parque Estadual de Terra Ronca caves: entry is by a vertical rappel of about 40 m, and inside the Rio São Vicente forms a rare sequence of underground waterfalls. It's at São Vicente that the famous "blue ray" occurs — a beam of light entering through a gap in the ceiling around 1pm and taking on a bluish tone from the cave's humidity. The cave is closed to ordinary visits; only with Semad authorization and an accredited guide.
A cave with enormous chambers and a clear-water river you can float in. One of the gems of the Terra Ronca complex.
A classic Terra Ronca traverse: you enter through one mouth and exit through another, following the river beneath the ridge.
A Bambuí-group limestone cave carved by the Córrego das Dores, with 186 m of passages, a gallery 40 m wide and 25 m high. The main draw is the skylight — a gap in the ceiling through which light enters all day and through which you do a contemplative rappel of about 25 m, passing right by stalactites down to the cave floor. It's in Mambaí/Buritinópolis, in Goiás's far northeast, not inside the Terra Ronca park.
A cave at the end of a blind valley in Mambaí, with the main entrance opening at the base of a rock cliff — the "penhasco" that gives the place its name — crowned by a giant natural window. Right at the mouth there's a small lake you cross through the water (chest-high in the rains) and, inside, waterfalls, a second lake, and rare speleothems in good-sized chambers. It's on the Barro Preto and Olho d'Água farms, within the APA Nascentes do Rio Vermelho.
