Guatapé

With only four days remaining in Colombia, I flew to Medellín: a city with a violent and chaotic past. I’ll delve into this in my next post: Narcos and New Beginnings.

My lazy days were over, and I wasn’t going to waste any time. I checked into my hostel and immediately booked a day trip to the pueblo Guatapé. All I can say is that if you ever go to Colombia, don’t follow my example. This town deserved more than a few hours. It’s not that it is incredibly large or anything; it just had a wonderful and welcoming ambiance.

The streets were rainbows of color. Each house had its own color scheme and zocalos: carved and painted pictures. It was an eye-feast for sure! Now I often try to live in the moment and not take a million pictures, but in Guatapé this was exceedingly difficult.

Now I’m going to have to backtrack a bit because the day trip did not begin with Guatapé…I was just really excited and couldn’t help talking about it first.

There were only two of us in the group, so it was basically a private tour. We alternated between English and Spanish, although at times my brain would freeze like a computer screen and I couldn’t process anymore for the moment.

Our first stop was at a lake that had once been the town of Peñol. Several years ago, the government decided it wanted to construct a lake and harness hydropower. As there were several rivers near the little town, they decided this was the best location and proceeded to flood it. The people were relocated and given “comparable” accommodations: aka nothing close to what they had before. A miniature replica of Peñol overlooked the lake, and a cross rose out of the water to mark the former location of the church.

After a little boat ride around the lake, during which we saw one of the former residences of Pablo Escobar, we traveled into Guatapé for lunch. Guatapé was a gem hidden amongst rolling green hills and scattered lakes. From the minute we arrived I wanted to stay longer. I wished to get lost in one of the cafes, to lounge outside a pub listening to a street performer as the sun set.

Piedra de Peñol stood high above the lakes. A staircase rested along one side, allowing pedestrians to summit it and view the surrounding areas. Raphael and I began the climb enthusiastically. There were only 650 stairs which was a lot less than the 1,200 of La Ciudad Perdida. Still, we were winded by 300.

The uppermost viewpoint was under construction, so we wandered around the lower area and let the breeze erase the sweat from our brows. Then lo and behold: Luke and Lana appeared…friends from the Panama to Colombia sailing trip. We chatted a bit and decided to meet for a farewell for now beer, as we already had plans to see each other when they returned to Australia.