Image: Natural Aquarium in Bonito, Brazil.
Highlights
– Ecotourism destination with a myriad of fun outdoor activities in southwestern Brazil.
Time of Visit: June 2026
Duration of Visit: Three Nights
Description
Bonito is probably the ecotourism capital of Brazil. Located in the southwestern part of the country in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Bonito is famous for its remarkably clear rivers, protected forests, caves, waterfalls and abundant wildlife.
The region’s unique limestone geology naturally filters groundwater that creates crystal-clear streams. This allows visitors to snorkel and observe fish, aquatic plants, and underwater landscapes with exceptional visibility. This is Bonito’s signature ecotourism activity known locally as “flutuação.” The experience can be described as almost floating in midair. There is not another place on earth where clear water coupled with aquarium like and floating in midair-like can be experienced.
Bonito also has a variety of land-based and adventure-focused ecotourism experiences. Visitors can explore waterfalls along forest trails, descend into caves decorated with ancient rock formations, rappel into sinkholes, kayak on rivers, ride horses through rural landscapes, and observe wildlife in surrounding wetlands.
All the ecotourism activities have strict visitor limits as part of the strict conservation rules. This helps preserve the area’s natural resources and avoids overcrowding to provide high-quality nature experiences.
Activities
There are many ecotours to experience in Bonito. You can probably spend a month if you decide to do all that is available. The tours can be grouped into six categories. These are adventure, bathing resorts, caves, diving (scuba), floating, trails and waterfalls.
Adventure tours include water sports such as ATV rides, biking, river rafting, stand up paddling (SUP) and tubing, zipline and horseback rides. Bathing resorts provide access to crystal clear rivers that are great for taking a dip especially in the hot summer months.
As for caves, there are multiple caves around Bonito that can be explored. Some have formations while others have crystal clear lagoons to admire. Some springs and cave lagoons are so deep that scuba diving is possible. Floating (flutuação) tours are mainly floating in crystal clear rivers while wearing a snorkel to observe the underwater flora and fauna. Last, trails and waterfalls are hiking trails that go to different waterfalls with some offering bathing opportunities.
How To Book A Tour (Activity)
Tours can be booked through many tour agencies that operate in town. Our understanding is that the prices for all tours are the same across tour agencies and at the tour location if it’s equipped to sell admission tickets (some are not set up to sell tickets on site). So there is really no disadvantage in using a tour agency. Plus the tour agents have knowledge about the activities such as what time during the day is best, the activity duration and how long to drive there. They do all the work in creating an itinerary for visitors, especially if there is more than one to be done in one day.
How To Select A Tour Agency
Selecting a tour agency can be overwhelming as there are several. It just basically boils down to the service they provide and how helpful they are. We just asked our “pousada” host for their recommendation and they pointed us to Echoestour.
Echoestour staff was very helpful and responsive to WhatsApp messaging, even at 9PM. They speak English as well. The only downside with Echoestour is that the electronic brochures they sent via WhatsApp were all in Portuguese. So understanding the overview about a particular activity was difficult, even with the use of a translator. Asking questions through WhatsApp was not efficient.
How To Pick A Tour( Activity)
It would be best if you already decided on which tour or activity you want to do before contacting the tour agency. For our case, we started asking questions about some of the tours by messaging the tour company. But we quickly realized that text messages and brochures do not paint a complete picture. And each person, whether our host or the tour staff, have their own favorite activities and recommendations. There were no one or two tours that consistently rose to the top.
So we ended up doing our own research. Thanks to several posts on YouTube, we were able to pick four activities that fit our schedule. Then we just told Echoestour which one we wanted to do on what day and they gave us the itinerary and quote after a few minutes.
We used this YouTube video to decide on which tours to do.
Conservation Tax and QR Codes
Bonito also charges a conservation tax. The tax must be paid first before the tour agency can generate a QR code for each activity. The QR code is what you show to the attractions to gain entry. QR codes are sent electronically via WhatsApp by the tour company. So make sure you have the WhatsApp application downloaded on your smart device and have cell service or WiFi.
The conservation tax can only be bought on-line. Payment can be done with a credit card or a Brazilian app called Pix. Most of the time, foreign credit cards do not work with on-line purchases in Brazil. We had to pay cash to our tour agent and he in turn paid for the conservation tax using Pix.
Our Tours
Because we had limited time in Bonito, we were only able to do two floating tours, a cave tour and an adventure tour. The floating tours were the Natural Aquarium and Sucuri River. The cave tour was the Gruta do Lago Azul and the adventure tour was the Ecopark Ponto da Ilha. These tours are described below.
Natural Aquarium
We were very happy with the Natural Aquarium tour. The pictures we saw on the Internet about the Natural Aquarium is what made us decide to go to Bonito. To us, this activity is a must do in Bonito.
We were on site at 8:40 AM and finished around 11AM. Short sleeve wetsuits, PFDs and snorkels/masks were provided. There is a changing room with lockers. There is an outdoor shower but not heated.
The tour started with a safety briefing, mainly in Portuguese. The most important rule is to not touch the bottom of the natural pool and river.
There were eight (the limit per group) of us plus the guide. There is a submerged wooden deck which serves as the entry point into the natural pool. We spent about 10 minutes in the natural pool which is just downstream of the spring feeding it. The pool size was about 10m x 10m (32ft x 32ft). The water was crystal clear with lots of “piraputanga” as well as other fishes. The underwater garden was also nice. It truly felt like being in an aquarium. This is the best part of the activity.
Then we floated in the river. The float took about 30 minutes at a distance of approximately 800 m (½ mi). There were fish but the water was a little cloudy with a visibility of about 10 m (33 ft).
Once out of the river, we walked back to the reception area. On the way, we stopped by the short zip line that ends up with a dunk in the Formosa River. After changing back to our street clothes, our guide took us to the animal rehabilitation area. There we saw an alligator, an anteater, capibara, macaws and a toucan.
Gruta do Lago Azul
As the name implies, Gruta do Lago Azul is a cave that has a blue lagoon. The tour lasts about one hour. It involves a 10 minute walk from the reception area to the cave entrance. Then we went down about 300 steps down into the cave to view the lagoon. We went midday and the natural light barely reached the lagoon area.
To the naked eye, the lagoon did not look that impressive. Sure, we could see the water had a shade of dull blue but it was neither bright nor striking unlike the turquoise water of glacial lakes or white sandy bottom beaches . Our smartphone camera shows it to be more striking than what we observed. In our opinion, it may have been better to have done a different activity.
Ecopark Ponto da Ilha
This ecopark is located on the banks of the Formoso River just northeast of town. The park offers seven separate activities which are electric boat ride, bike boat, inflatable canoe (duck) ride, rafting, a playground for kids, stand up paddle (SUP) and tubing. We went with the bundled option which included rafting, SUP and tubing. This was sort of an all day event. To us, rafting was the most fun and what majority of the ecopark visitors do.
The tour agency said that we needed to be at the park at 8:40 AM. It turns out that the first activity, which was rafting, did not start until 10AM. So we took the time to walk around the park grounds.
After we got our PFD, we rode the park’s bus that took us to the launch site. A safety briefing in Portuguese was provided with no English translation. But it did not matter as the only important thing to know is the brace position when going down a short waterfall.
The rafting trip is about 5 km (3 mi) long and lasts around 1 hr and 40 mins. There are four short waterfalls and calm river sections in between. There were three rafts during our trip and we had water fights in the calm sections which made it fun, especially if your rafting buddies are competitive.
The park has an on-site restaurant and bar. Their buffet with a two hour limit is the best lunch deal.
The tubing activity was next at 1:30 PM. There was also a short safety briefing in Portuguese. The tubing is done in one of the springs that passes through the ecopark. Its water is much colder than the Rio Formoso and mostly shaded by the tree canopy. The float is about 1,000 m (0.6 mi) long and lasted about 40 minutes. There were three short waterfalls with the last two resulting in a guaranteed dunk.
The SUP followed immediately after the tubing. The SUP lasted about 40 minutes too and we mainly paddled in the calm river section. We were done around 3PM.
Sucuri River
The Sucuri River is billed as having the clearest water in Bonito. Indeed, the water was clearer than the river float of the Natural Aquarium. But there were less fish to see along the river. To be fair, there were schools of fish about ⅔ of the way and at the end of the float. It’s just the fish were sporadic in between.
But the fish is just icing on the cake. The real experience is the feeling as if we were floating in the crystal clear water. The strong water flow just carried us downstream. It felt more like flying. For me, the 1.8 km (1.1 mi) float was over quickly as it was so much fun.
The entire activity lasted about three hours from arriving at the reception (10:40 AM) area to returning after the float to leaving at 1:40 PM. Our guide said that midday is the best time to float the river.
Most locals say that the Rio Prata rivals the Sucuri. Our host said that she likes the Prata over the Sucuri because it has more fish and is a longer float. But when it comes to clarity, the Sucuri River is slightly clearer than Rio Prata.
How To Get There
The easiest way to get to Bonito is to fly. Their commercial airport (code is BYO) which is located about 15 km (9 mi) from town. The flights arriving at Bonito originates from Sao Paulo.
Where To Stay
There are several accommodations in and around Bonito. If you do not have your own mode of transportation, we suggest staying within walking distance from Praça da Liberdade (Liberty Square). Most of the restaurants and shops are located along main road MS-178 and within walking distance from the square.
How To Get Around
Having your own transportation is best as the tours we did were between 15 to 30 minutes drive from Bonito. Some tours are even further away. We found that rental car rates in Brazil are very reasonable.
If you are unable to drive, there are taxis in Bonito. Tour agencies can also arrange pick-up and drop off.
Expected Expenses
The tours in Bonito have high and low season rates. The high season is not really a season but rather when holidays occur (see photo).
Costs below are per person. Credit cards are widely accepted.
Conservation tax – 45 BRL ($9 USD) per day
Natural Aquarium, Gruta do Lago Azul, Ecopark Ponto da Ilha and Nascimento Sucuri (total bundled price) – 1,150 BRL ($230 USD) (this is the discounted total price for seniors during the high season)
Ecopark Porto da Ilha Buffet – 82 BRL ($16 USD) non discounted price, 70 BRL ($14 USD) for seniors
People 60 and over are considered seniors.
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Summary
For international tourists, Bonito offers something increasingly rare in the modern world: a destination where tourism and environmental protection are carefully balanced. The region’s controlled visitor numbers, well-organized tour system, and emphasis on sustainability help ensure that natural attractions remain pristine while providing a safe and enjoyable experience. Travelers often find that the quality of the environment exceeds expectations, particularly when compared with more heavily developed tourist destinations.
Bonito is also an excellent complement to other South American destinations. It can be combined with visits to the nearby Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the best places on Earth for wildlife viewing, including jaguars, giant otters, and hundreds of bird species. Together, Bonito’s crystal-clear rivers and the Pantanal’s extraordinary biodiversity provide international visitors with a unique opportunity to experience two of Brazil’s most impressive natural environments in a single trip.