Guatapé and the Piedra del Peñol
740 steps up a granite fissure, and a lake cut into fjords as the reward. Two hours' drive from the city.
Duration
5 hrs – 8 hrs
Difficulty
●●●○○
Best time
Early morning departure
Open
Every day
Entry price
35000 COP
La Piedra del Peñol is a two-hundred-metre granite monolith, left standing when the softer rock around it eroded away. A staircase of seven hundred and forty steps was built into its natural fissure, zigzagging, from 1954.
At the top, the lake below is not natural: it is a hydroelectric reservoir filled in the 1970s, which drowned the old village of El Peñol and cut the landscape into a hundred arms. The town of Guatapé nearby is covered in zócalos, painted relief friezes along the base of every façade.
Getting there
Two hours' drive east of Medellín. Buses from the Terminal del Norte, frequent in the morning; ask for the Piedra stop before Guatapé.
What the price covers
the climb up the Piedra del Peñol, one flat rate per person, every day of the year. Paid at the booth at the foot of the stairway, in cash, with no booking. The village of Guatapé itself is free.
What to bring
- Walking shoes
- 1.5 L of water
- Cap
Rules on site
Seven hundred and forty steep, narrow steps, one-way at the top: it is not a stroll, and it is hot. The last bus back leaves in the mid-afternoon — check the time when you arrive.
Checked on 3 September 2026 at El Tiempo — nouveaux tarifs de la Piedra del Peñol au 1er janvier 2026