El Penol

Jeff, Susie (one of his master's diver friends) and I took a day trip to Guatape the day after the conclusion of the Pan American Master's Diving Competition.

Early on Wednesday, we took the metro to Caribe station and then used an overpass to cross the highway to the Northern Bus Terminal where we secured seats on the public bus for COP12,500 each. The bus left the terminal soon after we bought our tickets and it wound its way up the mountains that fringe Medellin. Before long, we were surrounded by pretty countryside. The bus ride took about two hours. I'm not sure if the bus driver deliberately played English songs because he had gringo passengers (we were the only ones) but we had a fun time rocking out to Supertramp, Midnight Oil and Men Without Hats.

The bus dropped us off at a gas station near the village of El Penol, and from there we walked up a steep-ish road to get to our first destination of the day - La Piedra ("the rock"). La Piedra is a granite monolith with a fissure in it, and a staircase was built into this fissure to aid the ascent and descent of visitors. A signboard on the road up proudly proclaimed in caps that this was "The Rock With The Best View In The World".

We bought our tickets for COP10,000 each, took a collective deep breath, and tackled the monster. I made it up in about 15 minutes. I was impacted a little by the thin air at this high altitude (7,000 feet).

So, was this the best view in the world? I have seen nicer views, but I have not seen such a nice view before from a rock. The view of the artificial lake and the countryside surrounding La Piedra was indeed pretty spectacular.

There were food stalls at the summit. Susie and I both had some fruit while Jeff had ice cream and we sat and chatted for a bit - mostly about diving and deaf education - before we tackled the last 81 steps which were up a spiral staircase inside a brick structure which first led you to a souvenir shop before letting you out onto the roof. So, 740 steps in all.

After hanging out on the roof for a bit, we made the journey down La Piedra on a separate staircase for descending. At the bottom, we negotiated a fare with a tuk tuk driver to take us to Guatape for COP10,000. Just as we set off on the 10 minute drive, we discovered that his dachshund was tucked underneath his seat! Our driver deposited us along the main lakeside road in Guatape.

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