Catarata de Chinata

Cuispes / Pedro Ruiz / Chachapoyas, Amazonas Region, Peru

About Catarata de Chinata


Hiking Distance: 5km round trip (to mirador)
Suggested Time: 90-120 minutes

Date first visited: 2008-04-23
Date last visited: 2008-04-23

Waterfall Latitude: -5.94099
Waterfall Longitude: -77.93786

Waterfall Safety and Common Sense

Catarata de Chinata was an impressive 580m waterfall plunging in three visible tiers then cascading further into the jungle. In theory, we should’ve been able to get a pretty clean direct view of the waterfall after a relatively short bit stee[ 30- to 45-minute uphill hike from the village of Cuispes. However, as you can tell from the subpar photos on this page, the weather didn’t cooperate with us when we did make it up to the mirador of the falls.

Instead, we either had to settle for cloud-obscured partial views up close or very distant views with the help of a telephoto lens from the road between Pedro Ruiz and Pomacochas.

Like the hike for Catarata de Yumbilla, we had to follow a guide to get up to the mirador. However, we happened to be hiking during an afternoon thundershower so the trail was very slippery and muddy (I even took a spill at one point that might have been the last straw that broke my ailing DSLR camera).

We also noticed that this waterfall was visible behind a military base in the town of Pedro Ruiz, but we weren’t able to get a good view from the front side of the base (as we couldn’t go any further into the complex).

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This waterfall shares the same start as that of Catarata de Yumbilla. See that page for more details and logistics.

For context, Pomacochas (our starting point of the drive) was 272km northwest of Tarapoto. Tarapoto was an hour flight from Lima, or 3 hours flight from Cusco.

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Tagged with: cuispes, pedro ruiz, chachapoyas, amazonas, peru, waterfall, pomacochas



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