Piedra del Peñol – Big rock with stairs and lots of people

Our guidebook and everything we read on the internet warned that if you want to climb the Piedra del Peñol to do it early. But it’s hard not to linger when you have a delicious breakfast overlooking a lake with both coffee and hot chocolate.

I’m not much of a hot chocolate drinker but this was truly amazing. It was made with local chocolate, sugar cane and milk.

Breakfast took longer than planned then the tuk tuk was more colorful than speedy.

On the drive there it looked like this.

Turns out that was the back way. For the equivalent of a US dollar we were able to have our tuk tuk driver go all the way up to the ticket area where there were a lot more people.

I did take a moment to read the rules.

When we got halfway up we not only lost patience but I got a glimpse of the stairs down. While not crowded, there weren’t a lot of hand rails and my balance is terrible.

We decided to cut it short, skip the rest of the way up and head back down.

I’m not kidding when I say I’m bad on stairs.

When we got back down I told Jeff I felt bad I cut it short for him. He informed me he never wanted to go in the first place. If I had looked at the selfie we took at the beginning I guess I would have figured that out.

We were both happier when we were down at the base away from stairs and other people.

And then we ate a steak, chicken, and pork chop lunch.

Is it worth going? Yes if you go early. Many people go as a day trip from Medellin which is two hours away. If you get up early and don’t let hot chocolate distract you, it would be a nice hike up.

Was is worth it with so many people? No, but that might just be us. No one else seemed to mind or turn back early. But then we also knew more coffee and hot chocolate awaited us at our hotel.