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Home » Destinations » South America » Peru

Gocta Cataracts: The World's 3rd Tallest Waterfall

Modified: Mar 4, 2020 · Published: Dec 11, 2011 by Dave Lee |

Gocta Cataracts
Gocta Cataracts in northern Peru

Visiting Gocta Waterfall, which is arguably the world's 3rd tallest at 771 meters (2,530 feet), is an easy day trip from Chachapoyas.

For $18, you can join a tour that includes roundtrip transportation in a minivan. The park entrance fee is another $2, and a fresh trucha (trout) lunch will run $3.50.

The hike from the drop-off point to the base of the waterfall takes an average of 2 hours, and there's a house with water and snacks for sale at the halfway point.

While it can seem like an easy hike, the altitude can slow you down if you haven't had a few nights to acclimatize in Chachapoyas (Elev: 2,300 meters) first.

The volume of water coming over the falls varies greatly based on the time of year.

I visited in October, before the start of the rainy season, so the water that was falling looked more like a cloud of mist than a heavy torrent.

____________

Lima Travel GuideDave's 160-page, all-original Lima Travel Guide is available for Kindle.

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About Dave Lee

Dave is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Go Backpacking and Feastio. He's been to 68 countries and lived in Colombia and Peru. Read the full story of how he became a travel blogger.

Comments

  1. Andi of My Beautiful Adventures says

    December 12, 2011 at 9:56 am

    Wow is that beautiful or what!?

  2. Kiara Gallop says

    May 02, 2014 at 7:32 pm

    We visited in April towards the end of the rainy season, so the water was tumbling down in huge quantities. However it also rained for the entire duration of our hike so we were seeing new waterfalls on the hike back that weren't there on the hike to Gocta! Totally incredible sight :-)

Dave at Ahu Ko Te Riku on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile.

Hi, I'm Dave

Editor in Chief

I've been writing about adventure travel on Go Backpacking since 2007. I've visited 68 countries.

Read more about Dave.

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