04/19 They sure don’t make it easy to see a mermaid guarding lost treasure these days. After a short ride from Pedro Ruiz, where I left Karin and Marten who are taking a rest day, I headed off the beaten path once again to see the 3rd highest waterfall in the world (or possibly the 15th; not sure where it ranks now).
The 2,529 foot Catarata de Gocta is accessible from Cocachimba via a scenic, and somewhat strenuous trail that took me about 90 minutes to walk (3.7 miles in and the same back out). Legend has it that a mermaid guards a treasure under the falls but if she was there I didn’t see her and I wasn’t about to go jumping into the water looking for her or the treasure. The falls were quite impressive. The volume of water coming off the top was low enough that the wind actually turned the falls into a mist before it even hit the pool below.
On the trail I saw lot’s of parrots and the most colorful bird I’ve ever seen. It was flying away so no pictures but it had the brightest red wings. I guess there are monkeys living in the area but I didn’t see them either.
The road from Pedro Ruiz was paved and in perfect condition. No shoulder but no traffic so it didn’t matter. The road up to the village of Cocachimba was unpaved and pretty tough climbing for most of the 3.7 miles from the main road.
The village is tiny. They ask that visitors pay 5 soles ($1.77 US) to enter. There are two buildings with guests staying in them but I didn’t see a sign for the fancy place with a pool. This place is the first one (yellow building) and a room was $9 US.
The owners of the place are extremely friendly and have gone out of their way to make my stay comfortable. I spotted a sewing machine and asked the the guy running the place if he could sew up my poor bike shorts. He took them and started working on them immediately. When he finished he wouldn’t take money for fixing them I didn’t even have to wash them first. For sure I would have asked for hazard pay. 
There are some other gringos (not Americans) staying here but I haven’t really talked to any of them.
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Hi Scott,
Enjoying Peru?
We have ridden (/walked) to Cocachimba as well to see the waterfall, we camped in the village.
We are now in Cartagena. There are lots of problems with the roads in Colombia so we had to change our plans a bit. I hope we will be able to cycle from Santa Marta to Bogota.
Regards,
Ronald and Esther
Hey! I’m glad to hear other cyclists have ridden up there. I checked Google and cycling blogs but anything written in non-English wouldn’t have shown up. It would be a great feature if Google could automatically translate a search into multiple languages and report the results back in whatever the default search was made in.
Anyway, Monika posted some pictures on her blog showing the flooding around Colombia. It looks pretty bad. Hopefully you guys find a way around the closed areas and get to Bogota because there are lot’s of cool places in the area. Take care and stay safe.