Poço Encantado
Interesting facts
- The blind catfish of the pool was once thought to live only here, but later studies found it in a regional underground aquifer that also reaches other caves.
- The lake floor is strewn with blocks fallen from the ceiling, a record of successive roof collapses that sealed old passages as the water table sank.
- Swimming in the pool was banned in 1994 after the rare catfish was identified there; until then, a good deal of litter had built up on the bottom.
- The cave is carved into carbonate rocks of the ancient São Francisco Supergroup, the same sequence that hosts many of the most important caves in Bahia.
- Under Brazilian law the cave belongs to the federal government, yet it lies on private land, where a local guide began leading visitors down in the early 1980s.
- The pool lies outside Chapada Diamantina National Park, roughly 50 km from its boundary.
- Estimates of its yearly visitors range from about 7,000 to 15,000, making it the best-known cave of the Chapada Diamantina.
Why it is worth it
For a few months each year, a shaft of sunlight slips through a crack in the roof of a cave in the Chapada Diamantina and lands on a pool of water so clear that it seems not to be there at all. The beam strikes the bottom and the whole lake lights up in an intense, electric blue, while rocks and fallen boulders many metres down appear close enough to touch. This is the Poço Encantado — the "enchanted well" — in the municipality of Itaetê, in the interior of Bahia.
The pool lies at the bottom of a limestone cave, shaped over millions of years by water seeping through the rock. It is about 60 metres deep, and its level varies by around a metre and a half through the year. Its stillness is part of its magic: there is little flow to stir the water, which is why the transparency is so complete and also why the pool is so fragile. Bathing has been forbidden since the early 1990s, and visitors look down on the lake from a viewing area at the end of the descent.
The light show depends on the season and the hour. Between April and September the sun is aligned with the opening and its beam reaches the water, and the full beam reaching the bottom is at its best in June and July, from mid-morning to early afternoon; outside that window the pool is still beautiful but lit only by the soft daylight that filters down the cave. The water also shelters a remarkable inhabitant, a small blind, unpigmented catfish, Rhamdiopsis krugi, adapted to life without light.
Local memory says the cave was found around 1940 by a hunter called Gustavo, who explored it and a few years later built the first steps down to the water. Today a paved staircase of 325 steps over some 230 metres leads into the cave, and visits are made with local guides who explain the geology and the history of the site.
Getting there
Itaetê is the nearest town, about 15 km away, though the usual base is Andaraí in the Chapada Diamantina; the pool is about 140 km from Lençóis. The nearest airport is Glauber de Andrade Rocha Airport (VDC) at Vitória da Conquista, about 220 km away. The final approach is by road to the site, where visits are guided.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Poço Encantado is a cave located near the Chapada Diamantina National Park.
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