Wli Falls

WaterfallsHohoe Municipality, Volta Region,Ghana

Ghana's tallest waterfall, an 80-metre drop off a forested escarpment beside a cliff sheltering up to a quarter of a million fruit bats.

September·Peaking now

Jun–Oct

Wet-season rains, heaviest in September, drive the falls to their loudest and widest, throwing a cold misty downdraft across the bowl. The bats have gone, though: the lower trail is muddy and slippery, and the upper-falls hike is too treacherous to attempt.

Year-round The falls run year-round, and so does the sanctuary behind them: some 400 butterfly species and more than 200 kinds of bird, in any month you come.

Wli Falls is the tallest waterfall in Ghana, an 80-metre drop of the Agumatsa river off the forested escarpment of the Togo border, in the Volta Region near Hohoe, beside a cliff that shelters up to a quarter of a million straw-coloured fruit bats through the dry season, and it is walked to on a trail that crosses the river eight times and swum in at the foot. The river is running off the edge of the folded mountain chain that Ghana shares with Togo, and the falls are where it meets the drop, in two steps, the lower fall reached by a flat walk of forty minutes through farmland and forest on plank bridges, with the roar building ahead, and the upper fall, higher up the escarpment, by a steep trail that switchbacks up for three to four hours there and back with a guide; the tourism office bills Wli as the highest waterfall in West Africa. The lower fall empties into a wide pool that is open to swimmers, a few steps from where the water lands, cold and loud, and the dark rock beside the plunge looks empty until the eye focuses and it turns into animals, thousands of bats hanging in the spray. The bats are the other spectacle. Straw-coloured fruit bats mass on the cliff through the dry season and take off at dusk in a stream over the forest, and once the rains arrive the colony migrates and the cliff empties, since bats fitted with satellite tags have been tracked across thousands of kilometres of Africa. The river swells on the region's two rain peaks, around June and again in September and October, when the falls are loudest and widest and the pool is off limits, and the village of Wli at the trailhead runs the guides and the guesthouses. The Agumatsa sanctuary around the falls is community land. Wli is a river stepping off a border, and the bats live in its spray.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Go in the late afternoon — the gorge wall keeps the base in shadow all morning, and the colony only stirs and streams out to feed as the day cools.
The bridges and the wet rock get genuinely slippery when the river is high, so wear shoes with grip; the pool is safe to swim but cold enough to knock the breath out of you.
Upper Wli is a separate expedition, not an add-on — a steep three-to-four-hour round trip with a guide, rewarded by a canopy-level view most visitors never bother with.

Things to do

1
Swim in the plunge pool
The lower falls empty into a wide pool that is open to swimmers, a few steps from where the water lands. It is fed straight off the escarpment and stays cold enough to take your breath, which after the humid walk in is exactly the point. The plunge pushes a permanent wind and a fine mist across the base, and once the sun climbs over the gorge wall in the afternoon a rainbow stands in that spray until the light moves on.
2
Find the bats on the cliff face
The dark rock beside the plunge looks empty until you focus and it turns into animals. Straw-coloured fruit bats are wedged into every crevice, up to a quarter of a million of them, loud enough to hear over the water. When something spooks the colony it peels off the wall in a single shifting cloud.
3
Hike to Upper Wli Falls
A steep trail switchbacks up the escarpment to the higher of the two falls, three to four hours there and back with a guide. It trades the easy stroll for a canopy-level view over the forest toward Togo, and you will likely have it to yourself.
4
Cross the eight bridges of the Agumatsa trail
The path in follows the river through farmland and forest, crossing the water eight times on plank bridges as the roar builds ahead. The sanctuary counts some 400 species of butterfly, and on a still day they are the thing you notice most between crossings.

Nearby

137 km