Qualla: Pailón del Diablo

Pailón del Diablo: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FB, CC BY-SA 3.0. Angel Lascano got himself excommunicated over the name of a waterfall. In the 1940s, this local from the tiny Ecuadorian town of Río Verde decided that the violent, churning cataract at the edge of town looked exactly like what it was - a cauldron boiling with devils. The Río Verde river thundered 80 meters into a basin of rock so contorted and wrathful that the spray itself seemed to hiss. Lascano insisted the place be called Pailón del Diablo, the Devil's Cauldron. The parish priest disagreed strenuously. Diablo, he said, had no place in a Catholic town's vocabulary. Excommunication followed. The name remained. Today, with San Rafael Falls collapsed into its own sinkhole in 2020, this cauldron claims the title of Ecuador's largest active waterfall.

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Image: FB | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pailón del Diablo: A Cauldron Shaped by Water

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hanspeter Bellers, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Río Verde does not fall politely. It arrives at the lip of a narrow gorge in the Tungurahua Province foothills, then drops into a sculpted basin of volcanic rock where every surface works against the water's escape. The result is a 260-foot descent compressed into a shape tha...

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Image: Hanspeter Bellers | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pailón del Diablo: The Local Who Named It

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fährtenleser, CC BY-SA 4.0. For most of the twentieth century, Pailón del Diablo belonged only to the people of Río Verde. Roads were poor. Outside visitors were rare. The Baños de Agua Santa municipality eventually funded a suspension bridge across the Pastaza at the mouth of the falls, which was primarily...

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Image: Fährtenleser | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pailón del Diablo: Two Approaches, One Cataract

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodrigolcalvo1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The short route, now called Cascada El Pailón, is approximately four times shorter than the long route and features what most photographs capture: two asymmetrical double suspension bridges offering the complete 80-meter panorama. TripAdvisor has repeatedly given it the Traveler'...

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Image: Rodrigolcalvo1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pailón del Diablo: A Name That Refuses to Go Quietly

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор Пинчук, CC BY-SA 4.0. In recent years, misinformation has circulated claiming the waterfall was historically called Cascada Río Verde. A CNN Español video and a National Geographic article both repeated the claim, apparently misreading a local song. The song in question actually refers to a different ...

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Image: Виктор Пинчук | CC BY-SA 4.0