After a mini celebration at finding the misplaced spare keys in the morning, we took a ride about two hours out of Medellín to climb a giant rock located close to the towns of Guatapé and El Peñol. The two towns have had a long-standing dispute over who owns this rock so it is currently known by two names – El Peñón de Guatapé (The Rock of Guatapé) and La Piedra de El Peñol (The Stone of El Peñol). The residents of Guatapé had decided to take the schoolyard approach at one point and started to paint the town’s name on it. They had managed to put a “G” and an incomplete “U” on the northern face of the rock before being stopped by a large mob from El Peñol.
Whatever you want to call it, the monolith is a granitic remnant rising from the depths of the hydroelectric dam of Peñol-Guatapé and has withstood erosion and weathering over time. The rock has an elevation of 2,135 metres above sea-level and boasts 740 steps that visitors can climb for some breath-taking views. The climb was much easier than anticipated thanks to the cooler temperatures (average temperature in the area is 18 °C) and the views were well worth the 36,000 COP (~15 CAD) it cost us to get up there.
After making our way down from the top of the rock, we went to the nearby town of Guatapé and spent the rest of our afternoon there. Guatapé was on our must-visit list ever since we knew we would be going to Colombia because Google convinced us. It used to be a farming town that became an important electric production center in the country due to the construction of a large hydroelectric dam here in the 1960s.
But we don’t give too much of a damn about dams… we visited the town for the retina-burning bright colours it is known for. What sets Guatapé apart from other the colourful colonial towns we have seen so far is that the buildings in this town are decorated with bas-reliefs illustrating life in the town and the surrounding area. While Guatapé doesn’t have much in the way of activities geared towards tourists, the town is GORGEOUS and remarkably clean for a place that is not exceptionally heavy on the tourist traffic. Even the rain we got in the middle of our afternoon there couldn’t put a damper on the town.
I don’t know how Colombian towns are so pretty, but we’re excited to discover more! 🙂
