An Insider´s Bike Tour outside Medellin and The Rock of El Penol

Today was a yet another wondrous day. I´m running out of adjectives that mean "awesome" to use in this blog because we´ve really had a lot of "awesome" days. So today I go with "wondrous". I´m totally open to suggestions by the way if anyone out there has a large vocabulary, at least larger than mine, and is willing to share.

So we were hoping to get the bikes into the Kawi dealership today but it turns out that it´s some huge Colombian Holiday and everything is shut down....figures. But this didn´t matter because the motorcycles decided to start up perfectly this morning and run like the gems they once were all day long. A while back Kyle had made a contact with a Scottish guy named Al who lives here in Medellin through the ADV aka Adventure Rider´s forum. Al offered to meet up with us and take us on a motorcycle tour around the area. Al is a recently transplanted Colombian and moved here from Ecuador where he owns 2 bars and spent the last 10 years. He´s currently working on opening a third pub-style bar here in Medellin called the Barking Spider, haha. Anyways, he rides a big KTM 950 Adventure and took us on an amazing tour today that we never would have been able to experience if it wasn´t for him. The final destination of this tour was El Penol.....see the shots below. And thanks a lot Al!

Al and his friend Paul showed up at our hostel this morning for the ride. It was amazing, Kyle´s bike fired up on the first try like there was never anything wrong. I think his bike is playing tricks on him or something. The big orange bike in the background is Al´s. Pretty cool bike and sure is a head-turner riding around in this area.

We rode about 30 miles out on a bunch of great twisty mountain roads and looked up and saw this enormous monolith....El Penol. El Penol (literally "the stone") is a ginormous, 200m high granite rock that rises straight up from the banks of Embalse del Penol, an artificial lake surrounding the area. You can see the shots of the lake from the top of the rock below.

Here´s the concrete staircase they´ve built that takes you up to the top of the rock. Didn´t count the stairs but there´s a lot...

There´s a 360 degree view from the top of the El Penol, pretty breathtaking. Here´s a shot of the lakes that surround the area. There´s a lot of nice houses and boats on the lake.

This little lady needs no introduction, she´s standing on the side of the mountain and watches over everyone climbing up.

Yours truly...

Here´s a group shot from today. Big Al told us he hates normal photos because they are too boring. He said the only way we were getting a picture of him was if there was some ear pulling involved. Big Al´s on the far right and Pauls on the left. Great guys.

Just a short post today, if the bikes are running fine tomorrow we head out from Medelling. If not there will definitely be a trip to the dealer in the works. Stay tuned....and thanks for following of course!