Yumbilla Waterfall

From Chachapoyas it is a fairly easy task to get a bus or colectivo (minivan) to the small town of Pedro Ruiz (an hour or so), and then change for a moto taxi (rickshaw) up the mountain to the small village of Cuispes (30 minutes). There were only two hostels in Cuispes that we saw – both on the main plaza. One seemed OK from the outside, but was full, so we were stuck with a more dumpy looking one, with rooms facing the plaza itself (Hospedaje Rocio). We had to haggle the price down as it was so basic, with cold showers shared around the back of the hostal (which is basically just someone’s house). It turned out that this was a great place to stay, if not very rustic, but very friendly and helpful.

Cuispes is the gateway to the world’s fifth largest waterfall, called Yumbilla. You can source a guide and a taxi to take you up to the waterfall pretty easily. In fact the taxi is not strictly necessary, but it does take about an hour or two off of the walk up. We arranged a guide, and walked around for a bit, exploring some of the muddy mountain, and the views of four of the regions 22 large waterfalls. From the viewpoint we made it to, we could not see Yumbilla yet, but we would head up to it the next day.

The hostal was the only source of food, so we had to eat whenever they made food, which was OK. Simple lunches of rice, salad and meat, washed down with soft drinks. This was the same for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I was glad we were staying just one night. The hostal had a funny looking turkey that was prowling around the grounds – it was actually pretty aggressive, the stupid bird. We were hoping they might make us a Thanksgiving dinner, but no dice.

The next day, we went over to the other hostal, La Posada de Cuispes, which had arranged our guide for us, for 7am – a good time to go to the waterfall for bird and animal watching.

The guides are on rotation – there are quite a few guys who know the routes. The waterfall is locally owned and they do charge a small entrance fee which you pay in the village (if and when the guy is there for you to pay). There are various routes you can do. The most interesting seem to be to a Cock Of The Rock viewpoint (does not seem to be a Lek, so you might not see anything), to the Yumbilla waterfall itself, or to the top of the mountain.

Our guide told us that a local farmer (hunter?) was at the top of the mountain after some particularly heavy rainfall a few weeks before, and a landslide occurred which killed the man! If locals can get caught out, what chance have we got?

We decided on the sure bet of the Yumbilla walk, because the Cock Of The Rock trail was pretty overgrown and slippery, and there was no guarantee of seeing animals at the top of the mountain either – especially when we had seen burning of the trees up there, to no doubt make way for yet more cattle.

Yumbilla’s trail leads past three other waterfalls, and is pretty easygoing. We did see some pretty flowers, a bullet ant or two, and some hummingbirds. All of the animals are at the top of the plateau however, so don’t expect to see Monkeys or Andean Bears here.

Yumbilla is considered the fifth highest waterfall in the world after it was laser measured by Peru’s Geographic Institute. It really is a series of 4 waterfalls though, but who cares? It has a low volume of water comparative to other waterfalls in the area, but it’s height of 895.5 meters is cool to look up at, and there are less tourists here than at the more popular Gocta waterfalls, which have daily tours from Chachapoyas (at a height of 771 meters).

A flock of Scarlet-fronted Parakeets were also noisily enjoying the bottom tier of the waterfall when we arrived, and it was nice to see them flying about.

We hiked up to the next level and got pretty soak with the water that was falling – apparently in dry season the waterfall can dry up completely. I would say that a visit to Yumbilla is nice if you have plenty of time in the area, especially as the forest and views are quite lovely. It would probably be an unpleasant hike during the full on rainy season though, and I would avoid it as it would get too muddy.