Cova dels Encantats

The cova dels Encantats opens at the foot of a small rocky wall. The mouth is very narrow, which forces us to enter completely crawling for a couple of metres. After these, it suddenly opens into a chamber in which we can stand upright. The chamber has dimensions of 10×5 metres, between rectangular and elliptical in shape.

We find some decorated corners and noteworthy is a flood level mark on the walls that indicates how far the water reaches when the lake is full. The water inputs appear to come from the NW side of the chamber, where there is also a prominent speleothem.

Almost the entire chamber is occupied by a temporary lake. During the visit, made at the end of July in a week of strong heat, the lake was dry but with the floor covered in wet mud. The depth of the lake reaches one metre. At a farmhouse in Santa Pau, whose occupants know the terrain and the cave very well, we were informed that during the summer it is normal to find the cave without water, but that in other seasons it is most usual to find it with water and that it is easy to find small animals that enter the cave to drink. The water inputs appear to come from the NW side of the chamber, where there is also a prominent speleothem. The inputs fill the lake until it reaches the level mark that we clearly see on some sections of wall. This level corresponds to the elevation of the mouth, so that if the lake is full and new inputs arrive, the mouth is the overflow and will act as a spring. From the dimensions of the lake we have made a calculation to determine the volume of water stored, which we can estimate at around 25 cubic metres (25,000 litres of water).

The mouth is very narrow, which forces us to enter completely crawling for a couple of metres.