At 6am, we headed to our meeting point close to our hotel and where greeted by a Colombian man with a big smile on his face. In English, he said: “Hey girls, welcome! Can I have your name to check of my list?” I gave him my name and he goes: “Oh, I dont have you here” “Is this the English group?” “Yes..” “Ok, that is why. I signed up for the Spanish group”. Fortunately, after the first incident, I knew my booking would not get lost, people just assumed I didn’t speak Spanish.
We got onto the bus and our group consisted of tourists from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Spain and Venezuela. Our first stop was for a Colombian breakfast with coffee, scrambled egg, arepas and some cheese. Then, our tour guide explained the plan for the day. To avoid the crowds, we would first stop at the “Piedra de Peñol“, climb up the 650 and enjoy the view over the surrounding lakes from the top. Then stop at the town of Guatapé and end the day with a boat tour.
Arriving at the rock, we realised how tall the rock and how small the winding steps were. Fortunately, it was not too sunny and even a very light sprinkly rain, which might the climb more bearable. Every 50 steps, there was a writing on the steps how many you have climbed already. 50,100, 150… that was easy. But getting to 500,550,600… I walked past an American guy completely out of breath and heard him say “I hope they have beer up there!” (they did). There are many stories on how he rock got created with the most exciting version being that aliens places it there and the most boring explanation that movement of tactonic plates created it. The view from the top was definitely worth the climb. Although it was cloudy, we could overlook the reservoir surrounding the rock, which created many little bays and islands with vacation homes, villas, glamping sites and towns spread at its shores.
Our next stop of the day was the town of Guatapé which is famous for its zócalos (or murals) that decorate many of the buildings. It is very picturesque and we walked around a little. It was a Instagram wannabe influencer heaven with many colourful backgrounds. The streets were filled with women posing and their boyfriends having to take pictures. After a Colombian lunch consisting of beans, patacones and our choice of protein (I opted for chicken), we had some time to explore the town on our own and chose to sit down in a café that had a balcony on a top floor above a busy square and watch the people a little.
For our last stop, we took the bus to “La Replica” which is a little themepark to remember the old town of Peñol, which was flooded in order to create the reservoir. It is a square with a church and a bunch of tourist shops, but I did find a pretty souvenir there. We boarded our boat and took a 40-minute trip across the reservoir, passing the ruins of a vacation house that used to belong to Pablo Escobar. The property had a bomb explosion in an attempt to assasinate Escobar, who somehow found out about the planned attach and managed to escape in time. The most interesting feature of his estate was a small blue building right at the water and a bit hidden from the main building. As our guide esplained, Escobar only feared three things in life: a prison in the US, his mother and his wife. And since his mother and wife were Christian women who did not approve of gambling, he built a small casino for him and his friends in a safe distance from the main mansion where his mother and wife would be. One of the guides on the boat turned out to be a singer as well and entertained us signing songs during the boat ride. At the end of it we boarded our bus again to head back to Medellín.
weltenbummlerinjoanna 