About Cascata do Pincho (Cascata da Ferida Ma)
Cascata do Pincho (also known as the Cascata da Ferida Má) is a waterfall in a lush and surprisingly remote setting on the Rio Âncora in the northwest of Portugal near Ponte de Lima.
It featured a wide intermediate drop backed by a taller, thinner tier that was probably about 10m in height.
Perhaps the bigger appeal of this waterfall was that there was a large plunge pool fronting it, which made this a nice place for a swim.
I understand that not many foreign visitors would go this far to the northwest of Portugal to access this waterfall, but it wasn’t like this place was unknown as we did encounter quite a few Spanish and Portugese visitors during our mid-June 2024 visit.
I guess that’s understandable because we were quite close to the Galicia region of northwest Spain.
As a result, I could see times when its sporadic popularity could cause its primitive access (see directions below) to get overwhelmed on weekends and local holidays.
By the way, I learned from one of our tour guides earlier on in our Portugal trip that the Portugese language actually originated from Gallego, which was the spoken language in the Galicia region.
Moreover, it’s worth noting that Ponte de Lima is Portugal’s oldest vila or head of a municipality and one of its oldest towns as it’s founded in 1125 (so it does draw some foreign visitors).
While the back-to-Nature aspect of the Cascata do Pincho is its main draw, the history concerning this often-overlooked region of Portugal makes for a well-rounded experience that tends to be missing from most tourist itineraries.
Accessing Cascata do Pincho or Cascata da Ferida Má
In order to access Cascata do Pincho, we had to go on a bit of a single-lane drive on cobblestone road from the village of Amonde.
Eventually, this road became unpaved deep in a forested setting, but at that point, it didn’t take long before the road got to a deep rut where it was questionable to proceed with a rental car without bottoming out.
That was where we thought we couldn’t drive any further so we walked to the Cascata do Pincho from there.
We walked about 350m (700m round-trip) from where we parked before the deep rut to the actual trailhead parking.
This additional hiking distance was not bad considering we could have driven that distance if we had a high clearance vehicle or were willing to take the chance on potential damage to the rental car.
Once we got to the actual trailhead, I noticed that there was a loud, wide cascade on the Rio Âncora below.
While it was tempting to scramble down to the banks of the river, it didn’t look like it was neither sanctioned nor that safe to pursue.
So continuing on the main trail past the trailhead parking, we hiked and then scrambled another 250m as the trail gave way to the river’s bedrock eventually leading to the edge of the wide plunge pool before the Cascata do Pincho.
The bedrock scramble was quite slippery in spots, especially where a side spring or brook ran across the bedrock and fed the river, so we definitely had to watch our step.
If we had to get our shoes and socks wet (which wouldn’t be as much of a problem with legitimate hiking boots), then we erred on the side of surer steps over taking unnecessary risks just to stay dry.
Anyways, we spent about an hour away from the car for this waterfall, which covered the roughly 1.2km round-trip that we ended up doing due to our premature trail start due to that deep rut.
That said, if the road was improved or you had a vehicle capable of getting through the deep rut, then the bare minimum hiking effort was more like 500m round-trip.
Authorities
Cascata do Pincho or Cascata da Ferida Má is located near the hamlet of Amonde near the town of Ponte de Lima in Viana do Castelo District of the Norte Region of Portugal. It’s not clear to me who administers the waterfall, but it seems like the authorities of Viana do Castelo have a big role in it. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Viana do Castelo website.
The Cascata da Ferida Má or Cascata do Pincho resides in the Coastal Geopark of Viana do Castelo close to the village of Amonde, which itself is near the town of Ponte de Lima.
Therefore, I’ll describe the driving directions as if we came from Ponte de Lima.
So from the large public parking area by the medieval namesake Ponte de Lima Bridge, we drove southwest (downstream direction) towards the N203 road.
We then turned right and continued for about 300m to the next roundabout with the N201 Road, which then went over a long bridge traversing the Rio Lima.
After the bridge, we kept right at the next roundabout to continue on the N201 Road for another 3km to the entrance for the A27 motorway going westbound.
Next, we drove for about another 10km to the exit 2 to go on the N305 towards Meixedo.
Then, we followed the N305 Road for the next 9km into the village of Amonde, where there’s an easy-to-miss lane on the right ascending onto the Travesseiro do Pincho.
Taking the narrow lane onto the Travesseiro do Pincho, we then followed this single-lane cobblestoned road for the final 1.5km or so to the trailhead for Cascata do Pincho or Cascata da Ferida Má.
Note that there were signs keeping us on track throughout the single-lane portion of the road (which had very limited pullouts to let oncoming traffic pass, by the way).
Also, the cobblestone surface ended roughly 500m from the deep rut that turned us around and forced us to park in a makeshift spot off the side of the road.
Overall, this drive took us around 30 minutes though trying to figure out what to do with that rut took us an additional 10 minutes before we finally stopped the car.
For context, Ponte de Lima is about 42km (over 30 minutes drive) north of Braga, about 85km (over an hour drive) north of Porto, about 85km (about 90 minutes drive) west of Gerês, 108km (about 90 minutes drive northwest of Mondim de Basto, about 202km (over 2 hours drive) north of Coimbra, and 394km (about 4 hours drive) north of Lisbon.
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Downstream to upstream sweep on the approach to the waterfall with some people scrambling to get closer to it
Downstream to upstream sweep from near the edge of the plunge pool of the waterfall with a zoomed in panning of the falls towards the end
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