Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Visiting Guatape

My last day of Spanish class was yesterday and I had an option to register for continuation of the classes for the remainder of the week but I decided not to. I want my last few days in Medellin to be super chill and I just want to take time to do whatever I want whenever I want without the responsibility of waking up in the morning for class. I know! I have such a hard life. Anyway, so today since I didn't have class in the morning I decided to visit Guatape which is a town that's an hour and a half away from Medellin. I had to use the metro and a bus to get to the town.

I had read and heard about Guatape and I was curious to see the town for myself and get to climb the famous rock, "La Piedra del Penol." Check it out below. I actually want you to take a very good look at this rock and observe the stairs on the side, now picture taking over 600 steps up those stairs! no gym machine can compare to this. It was murder but so worth it once I got to the top.


 The view from the top was amazing.







I hang out at the top for a while just taking it easy and enjoying the view before embarking on the task of going down the many stairs. Actually going down wasn't bad at all and before I knew it I was at the bottom, definitely faster than going up. I had lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading to town.

Check out my cool ride............


Guatape town is small and very pretty with colorful houses and buildings. It's impossible to get lost because of the town's size and it was fun just taking a walk around the town and navigating the narrow streets while taking random turns. I thought the town looked so romantic, just check out some of the pictures I took and see if you can tell me otherwise.






That's it folks, I enjoyed myself checking out Guatape and just taking it easy enjoying the scenery around me. As I boarded the bus back to Medellin it started raining hard and I thought the timing could not have been better, I settled into my seat and took a long nap enjoying the sound and smell of the rain. I really liked Guatape.

Random Thoughts of The Day:

I seem to be a magnet for old men in Medellin because I get hit on a lot by older men around here. When I say older I mean really much older than me, some of them are old enough to be my dad.

Fernanda is always warning me not to be friendly with strangers and while traveling long distance by bus never to accept food from strangers. In the bus today this gentleman sat next to me and bought me some chocolate from a vender who had entered the bus to sell his stuff. I could hear Fernanda's voice in my head warning me so I held on to that chocolate until I got to my room. Incase anything was to happen I figured what better place for it to happen than in the safety of the house I live in, right? by the way the guy was "older," see what I mean? in all fairness though he was very sweet and not creepy like the ones I have encountered.

A year ago when I first visited Colombia the only words in Spanish I knew were how to say: hello, thanks, bye and other few very basic words. Today as I was taking a ride into Guatape town I was able to converse with the driver and understood a great deal of what he was telling me. Granted, I still have some ways to go with the language but I am proud of how much I have learned so far. Ooh! the driver was "older" and.................well, do I need to spell it out? yeah, he hit on me too. Seriously! is this a common trend around here?

Colombia has a lot of public holidays, I was talking to my host and his mum and they were saying they have about 20 holidays. Imagine that!

There is a dog in the house I live in and he likes fruits, papayas are his favorite. Every time I am eating papaya he comes next to me and gives me the cutest look so I end up sharing my fruit with him. My host said it's okay for the dog to eat papaya.
















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