One of my favourite places in the world is Ayers Rock (Uluru). I lived there for a year in 1984/85. Working on the new tourist area away from the rock. Back in those days it was still Ayers Rock and dingos were still eating babies and you could climb the rock. I first climbed it as a 13 year old student. I climbed it again when I passed though in my early 20’s and then another 18 times when I lived there (3 times in one morning). And then one last time with the kids when we travelled around Australia in our bus. My best time was 22 minutes and 50 seconds (my world record attempt that failed by 8 minutes). Obviously, it’s unacceptable to climb it now but I have found another rock to climb in Colombia. Guatape.

Guatape is a two hour ride to the east of Medellin. It’s a really colourful little town of about 10,000 people set in the middle of a huge manmade reservoir. It was named after the Guatape people who inhabited the land and were grouped into a mission there in the early 1700’s.  It has a large granite rock on the outskirts of town with a zipper looking staircase going up one side. It’s very touristy. I deliberately arrived in town on a Sunday afternoon and watched all the traffic going the other way back to Medellín. The lake is very popular and holds over a billion cubic litres of water. It was made in the 70’s and produces 560MW of hydro power.

I stayed in a little guesthouse on the outskirts of town. It was just across the bridge and called Balconies de la Casona. It was a little family run business. Lovely people. $24AUD with breakfast and safe parking for my bike. I actually went for a run because it looked a nice place to run and the hotel had a hot shower. The first one I’ve had since I have been here. Hot shower that is. Not just shower. I must admit that it looked a little dodgy but obviously I survived. A bit hard to regulate but it was hot. I wandered into town for a bite to eat then made it home just before it bucketed down with rain which lasted most of the night with occasional claps of thunder. Fortunately my bike was protected under its new waterproof cover.

Next morning I had my breakfast out on the balcony and then rode my bike the 6kms to the rock. I had left all my gear at the guesthouse which made it much simpler to lock up my bike in the carpark. The rock which is known as Piedra del Penol is no where as big as Ayers Rock but cool all the same. Turned out that I was the first one there which was great and I had a leisurely climb reminding myself that I was up at about 2000m and it would make it a bit harder. It was a 220m climb and 708 steps and took about 15 to 20 minutes.

There is an external up staircase and a partially internal down staircase entwined into the crevice of the rock. The steps are marked every 50 steps and it seemed like 500 was just too much for one climber the day before. On the way down there was a stairwashing crew making there way up the stairs. Halfway up there is a little virgin Mary shrine. No shortage of them over here.

The view from the top is pretty good. Very picturesque. And I had the whole thing to myself. I was almost down to the bottom when I saw the first tourist climbing up. I think it was about ten bucks to climb it and a dollar for parking. I went back home and packed my stuff and then sadly had to drive halfway back to Medellín to get back on the road to Bogota. There was a longer route without backtracking but after all the rain we had during the night I was worried that a secondary road like that might be washed out so I didn’t take the risk.

It’s always nice when something you build up in your mind over time meets those expectations or even exceeds them. I stole a google photo.