Wli Falls drops beside a cliff that shelters up to 250,000 straw-coloured fruit bats, one of the four great colonies of the species in Ghana. The water itself arrives from abroad: the Agumatsa River rises in Togo, crosses the border, then breaks off the forested escarpment in two stages — a taller upper fall on the ridge and the lower fall visitors reach, together dropping about 80 metres onto a broad pool at the foot of a sandstone and shale wall. The lower drop is the one you walk to, and together they make the highest waterfall in Ghana. The river's local name, Agumatsa, is usually translated as "allow me to flow." The forest that hides it is protected as the Agumatsa Wildlife Sanctuary, which counts more than 200 species of bird and some 400 of butterfly.
The walk in is flat, takes about 45 minutes, and you hear the falls well before you see them. The trail ends in a cliff-walled bowl where the falling water drives a steady downdraft of cold air and fine mist across the clearing, soaking anyone who lingers on the rocks. The pool below is open for swimming and stays cold. Look up and the dark rock beside the plunge resolves into animals: bats packed into the crevices by the thousand, audibly squabbling, until something startles the colony and it lifts off as one shifting cloud. What you get depends on when you come — in the dry months the bats are massed but the flow is thin, and when the rains fill the river the falls are at their loudest while the colony has largely left on migration. The sanctuary is run together with Wli village; a guide is mandatory and the entrance fee is small.