Buraco das Abelhas

Buraco das Abelhas is the resurgence of an underground river: a phreatic cave with no speleothems, marked by large fractures and by kilometre-long passages spread across several levels. Leaves and branches turn up 500 m from the cave mouth, a sign that there is a still-unknown point where water enters.

The first dive in the cave was made in 1995 by Juca da Ygarapé, Gilberto Menezes and Rogério Perdigão, and Gilberto Menezes became the great explorer of the system. Until 2001 it was one of the main cave diving destinations in Brazil, when IBAMA ordinance 89 restricted the practice across the country. In August 2006 it hosted the first official cave diving expedition in Brazil, backed by IBAMA, to produce a management plan meant to serve as a reference for other underwater caves. By 2007 the guideline laid in the cave already totalled three kilometres without reaching the end, and it was expected to become the first flooded cave in a National Park open to tourists.

Its fauna includes cave-dwelling fish and river fish that usually swim in during the rainy season, when a temporary river usually forms, and end up trapped in the cave. In the rainy season, between November and March, the water level can rise by about 6 m.