About Gozalandia Waterfall (La Cascada del Guama)
Gozalandia Waterfall is perhaps the most popular waterfall in Western Puerto Rico (if not all of the island) thanks to a pair of notable falls that are great for families with kids as well as adults who are kids at heart.
The lower waterfall is the more popular one as it featured a tall 30m drop that was also unusually wide with a refreshingly cool plunge pool that was a hit with families, especially if they brought children.
Conversely, the upper waterfall is a bit shorter and more slender, but it featured a rope swing as well as a deep plunge pool, and this one attracted mainly adults since you have to hike a bit further for it.
Regardless, in my mind, both waterfalls were quite easy and straightforward to visit, and I can totally see why it’s popular.
The Gozalandia Waterfall goes by various names as I’ve seen it called Cascada Gozalandia, Catarata Gozalandia, and Cascada del Guama among others.
In any case, these waterfalls are accessed through private property, where we paid $10 to park.
There’s also a cantina by the large grassy car park, which served up some pretty fresh local food, including a pretty good mofongo as well as the freshest parcha (passion fruit) mojito that we ended up having throughout our Spring Break PR Trip.
Indeed, this waterfall experience was really all about lazing around in beautiful surroundings as opposed to being an adventure.
Our Gozalandia Waterfall Experience
From the spacious grassy car park, we pretty much followed a concrete path down past a building that appeared to have been damaged from Hurricane Maria before reaching a junction.
At this junction, we could go left and take a short two-minute walk down to the bottom of the Lower Gozalandia Waterfall, or we could go right and take a 20-minute or so walk up to the Upper Gozalandia Waterfall.
On the way down to the steep steps of the lower waterfall, there were some lookout platforms providing partial top-down views of the main waterfall.
There was also another path that kept going downstream, but that just looped back to the same trail that we were on (perhaps as an alternative if the steps were too steep for the acrophobic).
Once at the bottom of the descent, we could then cross the creek and find a spot to chill out in the shade against the intensifying sun though most people here just went right into the refreshing plunge pool to cool off.
Back at the trail junction above, I also took the paved path further upstream leading past some intermediate waterfalls and swimming holes before eventually reaching the Upper Gozalandia Waterfall.
This upper waterfall had a rope swing, and I hardly saw young kids here (if any) during my visit largely due to the fact that I had to hike to get here.
Another thing I noticed about our visit was that there were no boom boxes, no coolers, and no BBQs going on at the Gozalandia Waterfall.
Apparently, the owners here put a clamp down on the ambience of this place as well as perhaps pricing out locals since they did charge $10 to park during our April 2022 visit.
So it was refreshingly naturesque and less ear-splitting compared to say Luquillo Beach.
Overall, we spent a lazy 3 hours at the Gozalandia Waterfalls though we easily could have spent as little time as desired or as much time as we wanted here.
Authorities
Gozalandia Waterfall resides in the municipality of San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. Parking and access to this waterfall is on private property. For the latest information, the owners have an Instagram page.
Accessing Gozalandia Waterfall is pretty straightforward (at least in my mind).
So I’ll describe how we managed to do the drive both from Arecibo as well as from Aguadilla.
From Arecibo, we exited the PR-22 for the PR-129, which we followed for a little over 15 miles to the PR-111 in Lares.
Then, we would take the PR-111 west for a little over 10 miles to the traffic light at PR-446 (note this is 3 miles beyond the colorful Salto Collazo road bridge).
From there, we followed the PR-446 for about 3/4-mile before reaching a residential street turnoff to the right (by now we noticed “Gozalandia” signs), and we followed that road for nearly another 0.7-mile to the gated entrance on the left.
If the gate is open, then we’d drive down over a steep ramp past a concrete ford before going back up the other side before reaching a manned grassy parking area, where we paid the owner to park.
From Aguadilla, we’d drive south on the PR-2 before its off-ramp with the PR-111.
Then, we’d head east on the PR-111 for a little under 11 miles to the PR-446 turnoff and traffic light, and then we’d follow the directions as given above to reach the Gozalandia property.
Overall, San Sebastián was about 24km (over 30 minutes drive) east of Aguadilla, about 43km (under an hour drive) southwest of Arecibo, about 31km (around 45 minutes drive) northeast of Mayaguez, around 72km (over 90 minutes drive) northwest of Ponce, and about 122km (under 2 hours drive) west of San Juan.
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Downstream to upstream sweep from the far side of the creek eventually panning to Gozalandia's lower drop
Sweep showing an angled view of the falls as well as the large plunge pool below
Checking out the falls from one overlook before walking past the steps towards the other overlook of Gozalandia
Left to right sweep of the upper Gozalandia Waterfall with rope swing and some people chilling out
Another sweep starting with a rope swinger before the video pans closer to the upper Gozalandia Waterfall and then zooming out
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