Guatapé is a wonderful small town (5000 people in 2009). It is high enough (about 6300 feet) for the temperatures to be slightly cool in the evening and in the 70’s or very low 80’s during the daytime.
There are two main attractions in Guatapé. First, the majority of the houses have a fresco type design on the lower part of the front of their houses/buildings. The designs are seldom repeated on different buildings (except sheep seem to be repeated more than most other designs). The town is clean and safe.
The other thing is climbing the big rock called El Peñón de Guatapé. El Peñón is 657 feet high. A huge monolith that overlooks the area that was partially flooded to build a dam. Two sets of stairs were added along a huge crack in one side of the rock (one up and one down). We did fine, all 740 steps, albeit slowly, going up and down the rock. If we did that 2-3 times a week we would be in awesome shape!