Gruta Rei do Mato
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Gruta Rei do Mato means "Cave of the Forest King" in Portuguese. It is named after a fugitive who lived in it.
Gruta Rei do Mato is located near Sete Lagoas in Minas Gerais, Brazil at the border of BR 040 highway, close to the access clover to the city. From Sete Lagoas, the cave can easily be reached by bus, taxi or car. Sete Lagoas is 70 kilometres away from Belo Horizonte.
The limestone area north of Belo Horizonte is called the Sete Lagoas Formation. It is in this limestone that the Lagoa Santa Karst was developed. The area around Sete Lagoas has many caves, of which the Gruta Rei do Mato is the most famous one. In the nearby Parque da Cascata is a collapsed karst krater which can be recognised by some stalactites that are oriented horizontally as a result of the collapse.
The Gruta Rei do Mato has three large chambers with numerous stalactites, stalagmites and rimstone dams. In the Room of the Rarities has are identical columns, parallel, formed by the calcium carbonate crystals of calcite. These columns are more than 20 meters of height with only 30 centimetres of diameter.
The Rei do Mato (the fugitive called "the Forest King") actually lived in a small cave next to the Gruta Rei do Mato. It is in this cave that 4,000 to 6,000 years old cave paintings were discovered. Also, the skelleton of Xenorrinoterium bahiense, an extinct animal, was discovered here. Nowadays, there is a replica of this animal in the cave.
