About Cascata da Calcada dos Gigantes
Cascata da Calcada dos Gigantes (or Cascata da Calçada dos Gigantes) drops beneath a 200m long basalt rim facing the southern shore of Ilha Santa Maria in the Azores (or Açores).
This basalt wall is said to be 20m tall, which suggests that this waterfall must be at least that tall.
As you can see from the photo above, this may have been the only waterfall on our early Summer 2024 Portugal trip that lacked a good flow.
However, I’d argue that the geological oddity of being a basalt waterfall combined with the precipitous yet gorgeous ocean views along the trail made this still a worthwhile excursion.
As for the timing of this waterfall, it’s fickle in that its drainage isn’t substantial so it needs to have a bit of a good rain followed by a visit shortly thereafter in order to see the falls perform.
On average Santa Maria Island is one of the Azores’ drier islands and gets on average 2-12 days of rain in a given month (with July being the driest at 2 days of rain and December being the wettest at 12 days).
Therefore, perhaps the state of the Cascata da Calçada dos Gigantes during our visit late June 2024 shouldn’t have been surprising.
If we had the ability to come back to the Açores whenever we pleased, then I’d probably time our visit for the early- to mid-Spring months to see this waterfall perform.
As for accessing the waterfall, I started from an unsigned turnoff for a 4wd track by a private farm (see directions below).
Then, I followed the 4wd track that went around someone’s private farm before the path eventually reached the end of the 4wd track, where there was an interpretive sign about the Ribeira dos Maloás.
After the sign, the trail became more appropriate for hiking instead of off-roading.
It eventually clung to the rim of sea cliffs offering very nice coastal views of the southern shore of Ilha Santa Maria.
After about 200m from the interpretive sign, the trail then veered inland towards the edge of a ravine backed by a basalt wall, and this was where the waterfall made its drop beneath some cow pastures.
Continuing along the rim of this ravine, I eventually got to the start of the basalt wall, where there was a trail that descended steeply to the level of the creek.
After crossing the creek, I continued upstream to get right up to the plunge pool of the Cascata da Calçada dos Gigantes fronting its trickling waterfall.
As a consolation prize for my efforts despite the waterfall’s disappointing performance, I noticed that there were frogs in and around the creek and plunge pool.
After having my fill of this place, I went back the way I came, where I wound up spending about an hour away from the car covering about 2km in total distance (1km each way).
Granted, a lot of that hour was spent just trying to stay quiet for the frogs to show themselves (so I could take pictures of them) after their initial fight-or-flight response when I first showed up.
By the way, I noticed that GoogleMaps and Wikipedia had also referred to Cascata da Calçada dos Gigantes as Cascata da Ribeira do Maloás as well as Cascata das Figueiras.
The former seems to imply that the seasonal creek the waterfall is on is called Ribeira do Maloás.
Authorities
The Cascata da Calçada dos Gigantes is located on the island of Santa Maria of the Azores Autonomous Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Vila do Porto. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the official Azores tourism website.
The Cascata da Calçada do Gigante Waterfall resides in the civil parish of Santo Espirito on the island of Santa Maria.
Since we stayed at the Hotel Santa Maria by the airport near the town of Vila do Porto, I’ll describe the driving directions from there.
So from the Santa Maria Airport, we followed the one-way roads back to the EN1-2A, then we drove south towards the town of Vila do Porto for about 2km.
At the roundabout, we then took the Avenida Santa Maria (2nd exit) for about 1.1km to the next major intersection, where we then turned left to resume driving on the EN1-2A.
Driving a little over another 11km on the EN1-2A, we then turned right onto a rural road leading down to the Calçada dos Gigantes (I don’t recall if it was signposted or if we just followed GoogleMaps at this turn).
Then, we pretty much followed this rural road downhill road for the remaining 4km to an unsigned turnoff for the 4wd road that we’d eventually have to walk to reach the Calçada dos Gigantes.
While there wasn’t an explicit sign saying this was the trailhead, there was a trail marker sign (really for bicyclists) for GT1 and GT2.
Overall, this drive took us around 45 minutes (even though GoogleMaps said it should take 30 minutes).
For context, Santo Espirito is about 6km (about 15 minutes drive) south of São Lourenço and 15km (about 30 minutes drive) east of Vila do Porto.
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Brief back and forth sweep from the rim of the horseshoe-shaped depression of the Calcada do Gigante starting from the trickling waterfall then panning back and forth showing the cow pastures in the distance
Long video showing the profile of the trickling basalt waterfall before going down to the other side where I did another bottoms up panning of the falls while frogs were jumping into the ponds
Right to left sweep along the trajectory of the trickling stream before panning up along the falls itself then ending with a contextual view
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