#2 - El Peñón de Guatapé

What a day! First of all, I must mention that taking a shower is always a balancing act between freezing cold and burning hot. The water seems to take its example from the weather, which changes rapidly. However, the good thing is that it's the same every day. In the morning, it's chilly, around 9 am it becomes nice, warm, and sunny, around 3 pm it gets dark and around 4 pm it starts raining heavily. In the evening, it gets chilly again before raining throughout the night. The locals are used to this and are prepared accordingly. Somehow, we always get the timing wrong...

Today, we treated ourselves to a little luxury and practically rented Juan. This means that we didn't have to take the almost two-hour tourist bus ride, but instead had our own private tour guide and only 1 1/2 hours of travel. Since his English is really good, we took the opportunity to ask him about Colombia, life here, Pablo Escobar, and the stereotypes. What he told us confirmed what we felt, namely that while you have to be careful in certain neighborhoods and not every place is safe, Colombia is no longer fundamentally dangerous. The people here go to many places, they enjoy their lives, and the Pablo Escobar story and the associated violence are history, just like him. You can see how burdened Juan is by the reputation that hangs on Colombia.

He takes us on the long journey to the famous sight and makes a short stop above Medellín to give us another view of the enormous city. He explains the different neighborhoods that can be seen from here.

Finally, we arrive at the rock. But we can already recognize it kilometers away and are intimidated by its impressive size. So this is El Peñón. We have to climb 740 steps to reach the top, and we are not going to miss out on this workout. Juan prefers to wait for us down below. After the climb, we are rewarded with a breathtaking view, and every drop of sweat was worth it. It even reminds me a little of the Rhine Valley ;-). The descent is much easier, and we head to the city of Guatapé. It's a small town that is beautifully colorful. It is known for its craftsmanship, the figures carved in stone on the houses, as explained by Juan. It's a cultural tradition.

Then we have a delicious lunch, mainly fried food (or everything), but very tasty and there's plenty of it. For about CHF 20, we each got a full plate and a full stomach.

We take a stroll through Guatapé and stop at a bar, where it starts raining right on time, of course, and we head back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we have a date with Pablo, well not exactly Pablo, but also an Escobar.