If you want to say what is the most common thing in this world, then stone is definitely one of them. And there are many attractions about stones in the world, or related to mythological stories, or related to the strangeness of the stone itself, such as the flying stone of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, the wind-moving stone of Dongshan Island in Fujian, etc., and the stone wonder that we want to talk about today is more exaggerated than them, attracting millions of tourists to watch it every year, and even let the local win the country, let two villages fight for it, this stone is located in the town of Guatape, Antioquia, Colombia.
Also known as the El Peniol Rock, it is a huge monolithic rock composed of quartz, feldspar and mica and is a national attraction in Colombia. Half of this boulder is exposed to the ground, half is hidden underground, the exposed ground is 220 meters high, 380 meters long, and its weight is estimated to reach more than 60 million tons, and the hidden underground can not know how big it is, there is a house on the top of the boulder, which was specially built on it, after the boulder became a tourist attraction, the Colombian government bought the house, transformed it into an observation deck, and built a suspended viewing plank road on it.
Interestingly, although this megalith is a national scenic spot in Colombia and logically speaking, it should also belong to Colombian management, but the town of Guatapé, where the megalith is located, does not think very much, because this Guatapé boulder is very rare, so the local tribes of Guatapé town have long regarded it as a "holy place", and it has been a place they used to hold "coming-of-age ceremonies" for thousands of years, and only those who climb to the top of the boulder are considered adults and have the qualifications and rights of tribal adults.
In modern times, this boulder is quite popular with rock climbing enthusiasts, and the scenery is actually good, so Colombia will develop it as a scenic spot privately, and charge an entrance fee of 18,000 Colombian pesos, which is converted to about 40 yuan, so the locals sued Colombia to the parliament, and finally miraculously won, although the Guatapé boulder is a national scenic spot in Colombia, but it is a local independent jurisdiction of the attraction, whether it is developed into a scenic spot, how to develop and utilize, how much to charge the entrance fee, are all up to the locals。
There are also two white letters on the back of the boulder, namely "G" and "U", and the U character is a little blurred. These two letters also have unusual origins. It turns out that the monolith is located between the villages of Guatapé and El Peniol, and the two villages have disputed the ownership of the monolith for hundreds of years, and they have not been in contact with each other, and even often fight. The villagers of Guatapé first drew a large "G" on the back of the boulder to signify their ownership of the boulder, but before they could finish the painting, they were discovered by the villagers of the village of El Peniol, who chose to follow the example of the opposite side and drew a large 'U' next to it". Since then, the monolith has had two names, one called Guatapé Rock and the other El Peni Rock.
The name "Guatapé" means "stone and water" in Chinese, but a long time ago there was no water and no lake, and in order to live, people brought water from the mountain reservoir to create a giant lake. The reservoir flooded nearby villages, including Guatapé and El Peniol, and people moved away to form the town not far away, which was named Guatapé. The buildings in the town are painted all over the place, and there are even three-dimensional reliefs. Because of the bold color scheme and three-dimensional reliefs, this town has also become a world-renowned scenic spot, although the town has only more than 5,000 residents, but the number of tourists is as many as one million every year.
There is also an all-bronze statue near the megalith parking lot, which was carved by locals to commemorate the first person to climb the monolith. You know, at that time, there was no stone ladder plank road, can easily go up, they can only climb all the way up in the cracks of the boulder, and finally climbed to the top of the boulder after 5 days, and then in order to share the beautiful scenery with more people, they used the cracks of the boulder to create a stone ladder plank road, the stone ladder repeatedly crossed in the cracks, extending from the top of the boulder to the top of the stone, and it took more than 600 steps to climb all the way up. If you come here, you can definitely go and see this wonder created by nature, and I believe you will not be disappointed.