Can Marçà cave in Ibiza

Monuments | Sant Joan de Labritja

The cave is more than 100,000 years old and bones and fossils of rodent animals of extinct species have been found in it, whose skeletons are now in the Natural History Museum. The cave is located between 10 and 40 meters above sea level inside a cliff of Port de Sant Miquel de Balanzat, in the municipality of Sant Joan de Labritja, north of the island of Ibiza. On the access road, we first find a spectacular viewpoint from where you can see a panoramic view of Port de Sant Miquel, Pas de s'Illa, Murada island and the tower des Molar. Following a path carved into the rock you reach the entrance to the cave at an elevation of 14 meters above sea level. The cave is 100,000 years old and was formed by telluric faults. It has gone through glaciations and tropical heat and is now almost fossilized except in the deepest galleries where the dripping continues to form stalactites. As the waterfalls and water courses that flowed through the cave were fossilized, the speleologists who have been involved in the development of the cave, have recovered them artificially to reproduce what existed in the past. The cave, called Can Marça, was used by smugglers who lifted goods from the sea and introduced them through an opening that is 10 meters high. Today, you can still distinguish the red or black paint signs that marked the way out in case of escape or emergency.