About Cascata da Ribeira Quente
Cascata da Ribeira Quente is a kind of hidden waterfall that also happens to be one of São Miguel Island’s most impressive (let alone all of the Açores or Azores).
I considered it hidden because it’s situated between two road tunnels north of the town of Ribeira Quente so it’s real easy to miss.
Moreover, it features a roughly 40-45m tall drop making it one of the island’s tallest waterfalls.
As if that wasn’t enough, the waterfall also has thermal properties as the aptly-named Ribeira Quente (quente means “hot”) can amp up the steaminess within its secluded valley.
Even the colorful reddish-orangish cliffs underlying the waterfall further added credence to the fact that the creek had geothermal byproducts like sulfur within its flow.
In any case, in order to access this waterfall, we first had to park the car at a clearing about 200m north of the nearest tunnel (see directions below).
To further help identify this clearing, there’s a small thermal waterfall next to a trail or smaller unpaved road rising up out of the valley.
Upon leaving the car, you then have to walk south along the N2-2A Road for about 250m passing through the first tunnel before looking to the right towards the Cascata da Ribeira Quente.
This view is between the two northernmost of three road tunnels directly north of the town of Ribeira Quente so you don’t need to enter the second tunnel.
One thing worth noting is that the tunnels are narrow so chances are that a vehicle in the tunnel at the same time as you will have to swerve around you.
So you definitely don’t want to linger in there, especially if there are two vehicles side-by-side within the tunnel (with little to no room for pedestrians to get out of the way).
Anyways, while you get a pretty decent view of the Cascata da Ribeira Quente from the road, it definitely leaves more to be desired.
Fortunately, there is a trail-of-use leading closer to the waterfall from the right side of the bridge, where you pretty much follow a somewhat overgrown, unmaintained path.
The unofficial nature of this trail forced me to pay attention to each step because the overgrowth conceals dropoffs and obstacles like rocks and roots (as well as muddy spots or trail erosion).
While it’s tempting to just wade your way upstream to the base of the waterfall (as some people have done), the upstream scramble can be even more dangerous and slow going.
Being in the stream can be especially risky if it’s raining (or if there’s even a threat of rain), and flash flooding can turn this scramble into a death trap.
I opted to stay above the stream and follow the faint, overgrown path until I couldn’t go any further, which was about 150m from the road (or 400m from where I parked the car).
It turned out that the end of the faint trail was pretty much right in front of the middle of the Cascata da Ribeira Quente.
From this vantage point, I was close enough to the tall waterfall to actually require a wide angle or pano mode on an iPhone.
However, I didn’t see a way to get down to the base of the waterfall so this was pretty much a look-but-don’t-touch natural feature.
Once I had my fill of this spot, I then went back the way I came, and I wound up taking about 40 minutes away from the car for both the 800m of walking/scrambling as well as admiring the Cascata da Ribeira Quente itself.
Authorities
Cascata da Ribeira Quente is located on the island of São Miguel of the Azores Autonomous Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Ribeira Quente. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the official Azores tourism website.
The Cascata da Ribeira Quente resides in the civil parish of Ribeira Quente on the island of São Miguel.
Since we stayed in the town of Furnas, I’ll describe the most straightforward way (not necessarily the way that we went) to drive to the waterfall from there.
From the EN1-1A intersection just to the east of the Repsol gas station in Furnas, we’d drive north and then make an immediate right turn onto the one-way road through the center of town.
After about 300m going east on the EN1-1A, we’d then turn right at the next fork (there’s a sign for Ribeira Quente).
Following the EN1-1A Road for the next 2km to the southern boundary of Furnas, we then turned right at the next signed junction (pointing the way to Ribeira Quente) right across from a gas station to go onto EN2-2A.
Finally, we drove the EN2-2A Road for about 3.7km to a clearing on the left opposite an ascending trail and a small thermal waterfall.
Overall, this drive took us about 15 minutes though we did have to look around for a suitable parking spot on either side of the tunnels before settling in on the aforementioned clearing.
Keep in mind that GoogleMaps claims that this 6km drive takes only 10 minutes, but you often can’t go as fast as the app says you can go, especially on the mountain roads and narrow lanes or one-way streets in towns.
In addition, GoogleMaps even claimed that there was another place to find parking to the south of the tunnels, but I can tell you that definitely isn’t true.
For context, Furnas is about 8km (about 15 minutes drive) north of Ribeira Quente, about 13km (under 30 minutes drive) northwest of Povoação, about 25km (about 30 minutes drive) east of Ribeira Grande, 34km (over 30 minutes drive) southwest of Nordeste, and about 45km (under 60 minutes drive) east of Ponta Delgada.
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Checking out the falls from between tunnels
Checking out the falls from the end of the rather slippery and overgrown trail under some persistent rain
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