A day trip to La Chorrera, Colombia’s tallest waterfall
- Cecilia Markley
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Standing at 1,935 feet (590 meters) tall, falling down a mountain in seven ‘steps,’ La Chorrera waterfall outside of Bogotá is a sight to behold. As the tallest waterfall in Colombia, Marijn and I knew we had to see it before leaving the country. Bogotá was our last stop before flying into Lima, Peru, and seeing such a massive natural wonder in person would be a great way to say goodbye to the country where we had spent six weeks.
Getting to La Chorrera
To get to La Chorrera from Bogotá, we first had to get to the bus station Terminal de Transporte Transoriente on Calle 6. We left at 8 a.m. to avoid rain and ensure we were back before sunset. We took an Uber to the station for $6.75.
From there, we asked for a bus going to the town of Choachí, informing the ticket seller and the bus driver that we would be getting off at La Chorrera. It is important to tell the driver beforehand that you will get off at La Chorrera, otherwise he will not stop there for you. Our bus tickets were COP11,000 (approx. $3) each.
The bus ride was a little over an hour, and the views were beautiful. We zigzagged up the mountains outside Bogotá, getting great views over the city and of the nature of the Andes mountains. We also drove through intense fog at certain points. When we got to the drop-off point around 10:15 a.m., the driver told us it was our stop and where we would need to go to get to the park entrance, and we got off the bus and were on our way.
The walk from the bus to the park entrance
We had read that the bus drops you off far from the actual park entrance, so we were prepared to walk, but the walk ended up taking longer and being more stressful than anticipated. The walk from the bus drop-off to the park entrance is 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). Most blogs said it would take an hour or less, but we arrived at the park shortly before noon.
The walk itself wasn’t difficult. It was on a winding dirt road through a village, some uphill and some downhill. However, many of the homes had guard dogs, some of which were aggressive and would bark loudly as we passed. At one point, a pitbull puppy ran into the road as we walked by a house and began barking at us. An adult pitbull then followed. We retreated and asked a couple in the home across the street if we could pass safely, and they said they weren’t sure. So, very cautiously and keeping to the opposite side of the road as the dogs were, we walked by the house.
We also weren’t sure where exactly the park entrance was, so we had to stop and ask locals pretty frequently because every time we thought we were close, we weren’t. We even walked up a hill at one point to what we thought was the entrance only to find out it was a school.
We finally arrived to a man sitting in a tourist van who told us we were there! He said to walk left up a hill and we would encounter a woman to whom we would pay the entrance fee, and then we would begin the hike. But from here, it was another 15-minute walk until we reached the official park entrance. On the way, we did stop for some snacks, and the small dogs belonging to the nearby farm came up for some pets.
Upon reaching the entrance, we finally paid our COP50,000 (approx. $14) entrance fee and each received a drawstring bag with water and snacks included with our ticket. Finally, we could begin our journey to Colombia’s tallest waterfall!
Beginning the hike to the waterfall
The out-and-back hike is 3.4–4 miles (5.4–6.4 kilometers) and took us around 3 ½ hours, including stopping for lots of photos and snacks, but could easily be done in under three hours. Once we passed the park entrance, the first part of the hike was relatively easy. After about 40 minutes, we reached the first waterfall.
El Chiflón waterfall
El Chiflón stands at 180 feet (55 meters), and is a nice teaser waterfall to see before you get to the massive La Chorrera. To see El Chiflón up close, we had to take a right off the main trail. Next to the waterfall was a restaurant packed with guests, which made sense as it was lunchtime. There were two bridges over the river El Chiflón fed into. We crossed them and took pictures of the waterfall from the bridges. There is also a path you can take to get up close to El Chiflón, almost standing under it.
As we were getting ready to leave Chiflón and continue on to La Chorrera, a woman who worked at the restaurant asked if we would take lunch to another park employee, Mariela, further along the trail. We told her we of course would. She directed us to a different route, instead of the main trail that takes you above and around Chiflón. We crossed one of the bridges over the river and ascended up a series of stairs, eventually joining back up with the main trail.
The hike from El Chiflón to La Chorrera
From El Chiflón, you can go the way we went, crossing the bridge and walking up to the main trail, or you can continue on the main trail, which takes you up and around El Chiflón. We took the main trail on our way back. Either path you choose, you will walk uphill for a while before the trail flattens out and you get your first view of La Chorrera from afar.
After stopping to take photos of the view, the trail turned downhill, and we walked for about 10 more minutes until we finally encountered Mariela at a booth placed before the final portion of the hike before reaching La Chorrera. We handed her her lunch and took a left to tackle the final stretch.
The final section of the hike to Chorrera was through cloud forest and took about 30 minutes. To get to the initial viewpoint, it was mostly uphill and a bit more difficult due to the slippery rocks from the cloud forest. After about 15 minutes, we arrived at the viewpoint directly across from Chorrera where you can see the top of the mountain where the waterfall begins and almost down to the river where it ends. We spent some time here capturing incredible photos. It was hard to fathom that the waterfall that stood before me cascaded down the mountain for nearly 2,000 feet.
Reaching La Chorrera
From the viewpoint, we continued on to get up close to the waterfall. A few minutes later, we reached a fork where we could either go straight or left. Either way you go, it is a loop. Straight would have taken us across a bridge and directly down to the rocks from which you can get up close to the bottom of the waterfall. We went left, which took us up a bit and around to an area higher up. From here, we carefully climbed down the big rocks and saw the waterfall up close. Craning our necks to look up, we still couldn’t even see all the way to the top.
When we were done taking in the waterfall’s majesty, we walked across the bridge back to where the fork was and followed the trail back to the park entrance.
Returning to Bogotá
We reached the park entrance around 3:45 p.m. We had heard there was sometimes transportation to and from the park from the bus drop-off, but we didn’t see any when we were dropped off, which is why we had chosen to walk. However, when we asked the park employee, she said we could pay for a van to take us back to the bus drop-off. We opted to do this even though it was expensive, as we wanted to ensure we wouldn’t be walking in the dark.
We paid COP20,000, (approx. $5.50) each for a truck and then van to take us back to the main road where the bus had dropped us. From here, we waited no more than 15 minutes before the bus heading for Bogotá came around the bend. We flagged it down and paid COP12,000 (approx. $3.30). From the station, we took an Uber for $9.14 and were back to our hostel by 7 p.m.
La Chorrera was one of the last things we did in Colombia, and it leveled up the whole country for us even more. If going to Bogotá, it is definitely worth making a trip to the waterfall. If you don’t want to take public transport or maybe are solo traveling and don’t want to hike a new place alone, and are willing to spend a bit more money, there are tours to the waterfall available: here are some I found on GetYourGuide. However you decide to go, make sure you leave Colombia knowing you saw its tallest waterfall!
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