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Waterfall: Portugal, Gerês National Parka, Vieira do Minho, Cávado River, Caipimba Warning 2003-03-06: there is a tree in the entrance of a rapid on the fist quarter of the run, so be carefull! We also added a small video (Quicktime, 1.3 MB) giving an overview of the river.

What's it like

The Caipimba is a 10 meter high slide, clean and super fun. You run it pretty much straight ahead and land in a big deep pool.

The Cávado River is a granite paradise. You can combine the Caipimba slide with 4 kms of really good WW-IV without any big dangers (except two portages). Lots of slides, drops and many other reasons to paddle it. As you can see on the next picture, the surroudings are stunning. This video (Quicktime, 1.3 MB) also gives a nice overview of the river.

This river is best paddled during winter, with medium to low water levels. Since it is between dams, there must be some water on the other rivers.

How to get there

Taking the road from Braga (N103) in the direction of Chaves, turn left after Ruivães to a small road, direction Cabril. When you see a bridge close to a power plant, leave one car there because it's the take out. Make a u-turn and take the even smaller road in the direction of Paradela e Covelo do Gerês, parallel to (but a bit away from) the river. Before Covelo do Gerês, turn left on a dirt road that goes down to an old bridge. You may not want to drive the cars all the way to the bridge (bad road). Just leave them some 500 meters before. The bridge is the put in.

Info sources

Rui Calado