In the far west of the Plateaux Region, a stone's throw from Ghana, the town of Badou is the gateway to one of Togo's most striking sights: the Aklowa waterfall, a stream of milky water that tumbles from the top of a granite cliff into a natural pool hidden in the forest. Getting there is part of the charm: a walk of about 40 minutes along trails that wind through cocoa and coffee plantations.
Badou and its surrounding district are the cocoa heartland of Togo. The cool, humid slopes of this border mountain have produced cocoa and coffee since colonial times, and the landscape of plantations, forests and Ewe villages has a serene beauty. The hike to Aklowa crosses that farming world —with the guide explaining how cocoa grows and is dried— before reaching the roar of the falls and the cool of its natural pool.
This guide explains how to plan the visit: how to get to Badou from Atakpamé or Lomé, how to reach the village of Aklowa, what the entrance fee and guide cost, what to bring for the hike and the swim, and the best time for a good flow and a good trail. A nature getaway that combines effort, forest, cocoa and the final reward of one of the most beautiful waterfalls in West Africa.
The Badou area was settled by Ewe people who colonised these fertile, cool mountains in western Togo, ideal for highland farming. Under German and then French colonial rule, its slopes were covered with cocoa and coffee plantations that made it one of the country's richest farming areas. The Aklowa waterfall, revered by local communities, began attracting visitors in recent decades as one of Togo's great natural attractions, and today it supports a budding ecotourism that combines the waterfall with the world of cocoa.
Read the full history ↓Green Togo of coffee and cocoa plantations and waterfalls: wooded hills that were home to Notsé, the Ewe cradle, and where the Germans built the Kamina radio station near Atakpamé.
Read the history of Plateaux Region →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The Aklowa waterfall (also spelt Akloa or Akrowa) is one of Togo's natural wonders: a 'milky'-looking jet of water that plunges from the top of a granite cliff, around a hundred metres high, into a natural pool tucked away in the middle of the forest. Its origins lie in the geology of the western Plateaux Region, part of the Togo-Atakora mountain range that crosses the country and continues into neighbouring Ghana.
These mountains are made of very old crystalline rocks — granites, quartzites and gneisses from the Precambrian basement of West Africa — that are hard and resistant to erosion. The rivers and streams flowing down from the heights, fed by the heavy rains of this cool, humid corner of the country, found natural steps in those granite cliffs to tumble over. Over thousands of years, the water carved out the fall and dug, at its foot, the basin where the natural pool forms today and where visitors go for a swim.
The 'milky' colour attributed to the water comes from the force with which the jet hits the rocks and breaks into white spray as it falls. The surroundings of humid forest, cocoa plantations and coffee plantations stay green almost all year round thanks to the mountain microclimate: moisture-laden clouds release their rain over these slopes and sustain both the flow of the waterfall and the lush vegetation around it. The result is a cool, shady oasis, in complete contrast with the heat of the Togolese plains.
The Badou area, in Wawa prefecture, was settled by Ewe-speaking people who, as in the rest of the western Plateaux, colonised these fertile, cool mountains over the last few centuries. They were looking for good land to farm and terrain that offered some protection, and on these humid slopes they found an ideal setting for highland agriculture. They founded villages terraced along the hillsides — such as Aklowa (Akloa) itself, in the canton of Tomegbé — devoted to farming and community life.
For these communities, the waterfall is not just a geographical feature: waterfalls, springs and certain spots in the forest are part of the region's animist spiritual world, with places that are venerated and respected. Local people's connection with Aklowa goes back a long way, and access to the falls is traditionally organised through the village, which provides the guides and manages visits. This bond between the community and the site is the foundation of the ecotourism practised there today.
Life in these mountain villages has always revolved around the land and the forest: subsistence crops, gathering, small-game hunting and, over time, the cash crops that would transform the economy of the whole area. The landscape that walkers cross on their way to the waterfall today — a patchwork of cocoa and coffee plantations, banana trees and strips of forest — is a portrait of this highland farming economy, the legacy of generations of work on the slopes.
The economic destiny of Badou and its surroundings was shaped by cocoa and coffee. As in the neighbouring mountains of Kpalimé and Agou, the cool, humid climate of the western Plateaux proved ideal for these crops, which were introduced and expanded under the German colonial administration (from 1884) and later the French one. The slopes were covered with plantations, and Badou became one of Togo's main cocoa-growing areas, with an economy geared towards exporting beans.
Cocoa brought the region prosperity, but also dependence. Thousands of farming families live from growing, harvesting and drying the pods, and village life still follows the rhythm of the cocoa and coffee seasons. Badou's human landscape — its markets, its roads, its cooperatives — is woven around these products, whose fortunes nonetheless depend on international prices, with boom times and hard times depending on what the beans fetch on world markets.
For visitors, this cocoa economy is an essential part of the experience. The walk to the Aklowa waterfall passes through plantations where the guide explains how cocoa grows, how the pod is opened, and how the beans are fermented and dried before travelling to faraway countries to become chocolate. Learning about the world of cocoa on the way to the falls turns the outing into a living lesson in the agriculture and economy of western Togo.
For a long time, the Aklowa waterfall was mostly a treasure known to local communities and to a handful of adventurous travellers willing to venture into Togo's mountainous west. Its remoteness — 10 km from Badou along a winding track through cocoa plantations, and several hours from Atakpamé — kept it off the main circuits. But its exceptional beauty gradually made it famous, and over time it earned a place among the natural 'wonders' that Togolese tourism proudly promotes.
In recent decades, the development of ecotourism in the Plateaux region — with Kpalimé as its main hub and a whole constellation of waterfalls, mountains and plantations — pushed Aklowa to the front rank of the country's natural attractions. Reports in the Togolese press, local travel agencies and the Ministry of Tourism itself now promote it as one of the must-see sites of the centre-west, and the villages in the area have organised access with guides, entrance fees and trails to welcome visitors.
This budding tourism aims to be sustainable and community-based: the idea is that what visitors spend — access, guide, transport, food, accommodation in Badou — stays in the area and serves as an incentive to protect the forest and value the natural heritage. The Aklowa waterfall has thus become a driver of development for a cocoa-growing area that now combines its traditional crops with the arrival of travellers drawn by its milky waterfall in the heart of the forest.
Today, visiting the Aklowa waterfall is one of the most recommended nature experiences in centre-west Togo. The trip starts in Badou, a cocoa town and service base, continues by motorbike taxi or car to the village of Aklowa — 10 km to the south, setting off from the Bèna junction along a track that snakes between plantations — and ends with a walk of about 40 minutes along narrow paths that climb and drop through cocoa and coffee plantations and stretches of humid forest.
The effort pays off twice: with the spectacle of the water plunging down the granite cliff, and with the coolness of the natural pool where you can swim at the foot of the falls. It is a peaceful, green place, wrapped in the roar of the water and the mist of the forest, very different from the heat of the plains. Visits are always made with a local guide, who makes sure the path is safe, explains how cocoa is grown and passes on the respect the community has for the site.
Aklowa sums up the best of the western Plateaux: lush nature, abundant water, cool mountains and a cocoa economy with colonial roots that is now opening up to ecotourism. For travellers heading up from Lomé on the central highway, turning off towards Badou and walking to this waterfall means discovering a green, humid and surprising side of Togo, far from the image of a dry, flat country — and one of the most beautiful sights in the whole country.
