Ubajara

Ubajara National Park was created in 1959 in the north-west of the state of Ceará, in the Ibiapaba range, and is the smallest of the Brazilian national parks. It was enlarged in the early 2000s beyond its original area, which was even smaller.

Its best-known feature is the Ubajara cave, a limestone cavity developed inside the escarpment of the range, with several chambers and formations of stalactites and stalagmites to which tradition has given names. The usual access is by a cable car that spans the drop of the escarpment and descends from the edge of the plateau to the cave entrance, one of the few of its kind in Brazil.

The park also protects a fragment of upland moist forest, an exceptional enclave in the middle of the semi-arid north-east: the Ibiapaba range intercepts the moisture of the winds and creates a microclimate that allows forest-sized vegetation and constant humidity to exist surrounded by caatinga. Those brejos de altitude work as biogeographical islands and hold species that could not survive in the dry surroundings, as well as a cave fauna in the grottoes, with bat colonies.