Book Affordable Bus Tickets to Guatapé

The Embalse Peñol-Guatapé reservoir was created in the 1970s when Colombia's national electricity company flooded the original Peñol village to build a major hydroelectric dam (the area now supplies a significant portion of Colombia's electricity). The flooded village was relocated to a new town nearby (Nuevo Peñol). The Piedra del Peñol (El Peñol rock) was already a famous landmark before the dam — a 200-meter-tall monolithic granite monolith rising from the surrounding landscape, sacred to the Tahamí indigenous people who lived in the area before Spanish colonization. After the dam was built, the rock's visual impact was dramatically enhanced by the surrounding reservoir water + island archipelago — the view from the summit is now one of Colombia's most iconic landscapes.

The 740-step concrete staircase to the summit was built in a natural crack on the rock's face — a remarkable engineering achievement that allows almost anyone to reach the top (~30-45 min climb, moderate difficulty). Entry COP 25,000 / US$6. The summit has small viewing platforms + a tiny café. *Guatapé town's zócalos*— the brightly painted bas-relief panels at the base of every building's exterior — are the town's other major attraction. The tradition began in the 1920s-30s when local artisans began painting decorative panels on building exteriors; today every building in central Guatapé has unique zócalos depicting local life, agriculture, religion, animals, and folklore. The result is one of Colombia's most colorful + photogenic towns. Pablo Escobar's bombed-out lakeside estate** (La Manuela) — destroyed in 1993 by a rival cartel bomb during his hunting + later raided by police after his death — is now a tourist curiosity reachable by boat ($5-10 USD entry, $10-20 USD boat ride).