The giant portal
One of the tallest.
Lapa dos Brejões is a cave complex in very ancient limestone along the Jacaré River, in the northern part of Bahia's Chapada Diamantina, some five hundred kilometres from Salvador. Locals say it was discovered in 1877, though the first account of its interior was published in 1938. It counts among Brazil's most remarkable caves for the sheer size of its galleries, halls, skylights and formations: its main entrance portal is 106 metres high. A collapsed karst canyon splits it into two sections totalling about 7,750 metres; the larger section has galleries up to eighty metres high and 150 metres wide, and two giant collapse sinkholes up to a hundred metres across open its roof to the light. The river runs through the cave, disappearing and reappearing along the way. Rock shelters along the canyon hold ancient paintings, and a fossil of a megatherium, the extinct giant ground sloth, was found in the cave. The site is remote and rugged, so visit with a local guide, good shoes and torches.
One of the tallest.
Sinkholes 100 m across.
In the canyon shelters.
Jacaré River valley, northern Chapada Diamantina, Bahia
Yes, the site is remote and rugged and is visited with a local guide.