Pulo do Lobo is a waterfall 17 km north of

Mértola Mértola () is a municipality in southeastern Portuguese Alentejo near the Spanish border. In 2011, the population was 7,274, in an area of approximately : it is the sixth-largest municipality in Portugal. Meanwhile, it is the second-lowest popula ...

, in the Lower Alentejo region of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It is the highest waterfall in Southern Portugal. Its name means "w''olf's leap"'' in

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

; it was said that only a brave man or a wild animal when chased could leap over the gorge that was created by the waterfall. This waterfall is located at an altitude of between 33 and 35 metres in a very narrow gorge in the River Guadiana. Pulo do Lobo is the most dramatic stretch of the

Guadiana The Guadiana River (, also , , ), or Odiana, is an international river defining a long stretch of the Portugal-Spain border, separating Extremadura and Andalusia (Spain) from Alentejo and Algarve (Portugal). The river's basin extends from the e ...

, where the "river boils between harsh walls, the rushing of water, hit, flow and wind gnawing a millimeter per century per millennium, a nothing in eternity" as

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which heco ...

, one of Portugal's most famous writers, wrote. The Pulo do Lobo is formed by the Guadiana river which separates Spain and Portugal. The waterfall is a very majestic sight and is full of native wildlife.

References

{{authority control Waterfalls of Portugal Guadiana Mértola