Tuesday, 3rd September. From Medellin to Piedra del Penol, near Guatape. Colombia.

Medellin

We had arranged to meet Mauricio for breakfast at 10.30. At about 09.45 Dennis left our hotel to collect Poki from the parking lot. I expected it to take about 15 minutes. After half an hour, I started to wonder why he was taking so long. After 45 minutes I thought I’d better go and investigate. 

Walking into the parking lot I find both Dennis and Mauricio, with Poki looking in some disarray. At first I thought she’d been broken into, then they tell me she has a puncture. Dennis has replaced the wheel and Mauricio offers to roll the damaged wheel, which has absorbed a huge bolt, over to the very conveniently located neighbouring garage. 

It’s a brute of a tyre!

Dennis thought a plug would fix it, but Mauricio comes back and says it is too large a hole, so it should be patched. It costs 35,000, about £7.00, NZ$14.00. We leave the tyre to be repaired, go back to the hotel to collect our things, then proceed to a neighbouring cafe.

We start with 3 different fruit juices, typical to Colombia. While we are chatting and waiting for our meal, Dennis goes to check on the location of our sat-nav, as he hadn’t seen it in Poki. He’s gone for a long time and comes back looking worried. He can’t find it anywhere. I go back to the hotel to check whether we left it in the room, although I’m sure we put it away in Poki. Dennis goes back for another look. This time he finds it!

After all this upheaval, we realise we never actually ordered our food. Eventually we were eating, but time was rapidly passing as we had been talking so much. Dennis asked Mauricio if he knew where we could buy some walnuts. He gave us the address of a market and we said our farewells.

 By this time it was about 2pm. We picked up the tyre, filled a jerry can with backup fuel and set off for the market. I waited in Poki while Dennis went to look for walnuts. He quickly returned waiving a large bag. Now we could get underway.

Leaving Medellin

As we were on the valley floor to get to our next destination, which at this stage was Guatepe, we had to climb over a mountain range. We had the sat-nav set for the Eco Route. This took us through some rather dodgy looking suburbs, where I would not have wanted to be at night, and up some almost vertical streets. In first gear poor Poki was struggling up, with the extra weight of a full Jerry can. 

Eventually we were pretty much at the top with the city spread beneath us. We passed through two tunnels, the second being 8.5kms and the longest in Latin America. Once through this tunnel, the scenery changed. We were now out of the urban sprawl and on a narrow winding country road. As we neared Guatepe, we caught glimpses of what the area is famous for. A huge reservoir which has drowned many valleys giving the impression of fjords. 

Piedra del Penol

The reservoir provides hydroelectric power but is also a huge recreational area attracting tourists and at weekends, the locals, who are known as Paisas, from Medellin. We had intended to go to Guatepe but we have stopped a bit short of the town to visit Piedra del Penol, or the Stone of El Penol.

There is a bit of a local argument over this stone. It is sometimes known as El Penon de Guatepe as well as the Piedra del Penol as both Guatepe and El Penol claim it as theirs. It is a granite rock, 220 metres high. You can climb 649 steps for a panoramic view. We plan to do this tomorrow.

We have stopped at Castillos del Lagoon where we have a cabana. I found it on iOverlander. I was expecting a small room, but it’s actually a whole house. We have a kitchen, lounge/dining area, bathroom and bedroom on the ground floor and upstairs there are 2 more bedrooms with 5 beds and another bathroom. It is quite quaint with the walls decorated with paintings of owls and flowers. Outside there is a terrace and a path leading down to some outdoor seating with a view over the rock in one direction and an inlet in the other. 

There was a really pretty hummingbird in the flowering shrub outside our front door. I was hoping to sit and have a cup of tea and see some more, but a pile of washing needed to be done. By the time I had done this it was dark and then dinner needed to be cooked. It’s true what they say about women’s work.

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