Peñol, La Piedra, and Guatapé

Today we planned for a day trip to Guatapé. Amanda booked our trip with MaxiTours yesterday afternoon and they picked us up right at 7 am. They found us while we were eating our breakfast at the lovely buffet. We then proceeded to pick up about 30 more people which included Noelle, a friend Amanda had made on her travels in Morocco, reconnected in Peru, and coincidentally in Colombia during the same time. Amanda and Noelle flew into Medellín together and coordinated being on the same tour.

We drove for over an hour where our tour guide and translator, David, educated us about Medellín and explained our breakfast and took our lunch orders. We learned that David studied English by watching the Simpsons and listening to Metallica. He was definitely our kind as he also brought his mom on the tour.

At breakfast, we had eggs, cheese, a plaintain, and an arepa. We paired it with agua de panela which can be served cold or hot. We had hot which tasted like a sweet tea. Ricky, the other American on the tour, joined us at our table. Here’s our second breakfast of the day:

So we learned there was a town that had to be moved due to the water levels called Peñol and we got to see the new version. In the town, we saw a Rock Temple which was a packed church and we took a selfie:

Then we went on a boat ride on which I dubbed Colombia’s Lake Como. The boat was fun with lively music and some seniors who were feeling the rhythm. Here’s a photo of us and a fun snippet of the dancing with life vests - https://youtu.be/6LG7fw3PyFg:

Here we saw Pablo Escobar’s bombed out house on this lake for the wealthy and apparently, the notorious:

And the goal keeper for Arsenal was definitely having a Sunday Funday with loud music:

But of course, the lake had a cross in the middle:

After our boat ride, we got on the bus and drove to the replica of the Old Peñol. Here we took some fun photos and even saw them filming a music video:

And then the highlight of our trip was to climb La Piedra which means The Stone. The climb is 675 steps and we enjoyed beautiful views of the surrounding area. Here are pictures from our experience climbing the rock - we thought the tour guide, David, kept saying “claim the rock”, but he meant “climb” and Ricky made a fun photo.

At the top, we enjoyed a Michelada beer with mangos. We realized there was a side of the table who were citizens of the world and I was lonely on my side:

We then headed down and took some photos where you could peek through the steps:

We then met the rest of the tour group at the Stone Restaurant. It had beautiful views and we enjoyed our meals pictured here:

The colorful town of Guatapé was our next stop which was famous for their Zócalos which were impressions inlaid on the side of the buildings. We wandered, enjoyed the music, and had ice cream, our tour guides even wanted to take photos with us:

Here’s our whole tour group:

With our Spanish speaking guide:

And our English speaking guide:

Here’s a sample of the music in the plaza while we were sitting on the steps - https://youtu.be/CyxsOQX0rU8:

Ice cream and more walking around the town:

After a two hour ride back, we were the first to be dropped off and we invited Noelle and Ricky to have dinner with us at the Mercado Del Río. We had to convince Ricky we were too old to party and preferred just drinking at dinner.

Here was an extensive food court, beer garden, and lounge seating. We ended up drinking sangria, and shared a meat and cheese plate, sausages, and paella.

What a wonderful day of new friends and nice sight seeing! My toe was wrapped in plastic in my hiking boots in case it started to bleed, but it lasted the fun and sunny day!