One major tourist activity we planned for our time in Querétaro was to take a day trip to Peña de Bernal. The peña is a 1400 foot monolith, one of the tallest in the world, and looms over the charming colonial town of Bernal, a pueblo magico about an hour away from Querétaro.

I read several blogs about how to make the trip, most of which talked about doing it by bus. However, we’d need a taxi or Uber to first get to the bus station on the outskirts of town and we’d need to catch the bus back from Bernal by the side of the highway. Also, while the drive showed to be about an hour by car, the blogs said it was 90 minutes by bus and didn’t share departure times other than every hour or so. Factoring in getting to and from the bus station, waiting for the bus, and the longer ride time, it would take at least twice as long as driving. 

I messaged Ivan, our Uber driver who took us to and from the symphony, to ask what his price would be to take us, wait a few hours, and bring us back. He quoted 1400 pesos (just over $75), which sounded reasonable to me.  It would be about $50 more than what I figured the bus plus Ubers to and from the bus station would cost. But I really didn’t want us to have to stand by the side of the highway for up to an hour waiting for the bus back. 

On a Tuesday morning, Ivan picked us up right on time at 9 a.m and drove us directly to the the base of the pena in about an hour. This was another consideration for choosing him over the bus, because it would have been a 90-minute bus ride to the outskirts of Bernal followed by a 30-minute uphill walk from highway through the town to get to where Ivan dropped us off. Also, the drive with Ivan was very pleasant. His English was at about the same level as my Spanish, so we were able to communicate. He asked about the concert we’d been to and upon hearing it featured a Mexican composer, introduced us to another, Arturo Márquez, whose Danzón No. 2 is considered to be Mexico’s second national anthem. He even played the song for us on Spotify. We plan to keep an eye out for perforamnces of Marquez’s work.

We could see the peña clearly as we entered the town of Bernal and it was definitely impressive. After Ivan dropped us off at the parking lot, we made a quick stop at a clean and modern public bathroom (I believe 10 pesos each) and then began making our way up the walking path to the entrance. There is a charge of 30 pesos each for the entry, payable in cash and the signs said they wanted exact change, which I had. Once inside the gate, we started climbing the rocky stairs up the path.

After about 20 or 30 minutes of walking up, we reached another gate blocking off the rest of the ascension, which requires guides and climbing gear. Overall it was a pleasant walk and had an okay view over the town of Bernal. But I think the peña is more interesting to look at than to look out from. It was similar to our hike up La Piedra del Peñol outside of Medellin, but that had prettier views. We rested a bit at the top and had a quick granola bar snack before we heading back down the path and into the town of Bernal.

I’d marked a couple of spots on Google maps that said had good views of the peña, which we checked out first. Then we walked around town and found a place for lunch. Bernal is known for gorditas (as is the state of Queretaro in general), so we chose a restaurant that was recommended on one of the blogs I read despite its poor Google reviews called El Negrito Gorditas y Micheladas. Actually, we’d been hoping for a drink first with a rooftop view of the peña, but those restaurants didn’t open until noon at the earliest and we were a bit before that. El Negrito proved to be a good choice for us and we got a couple of vegetarian gorditas (our favorite was rajas con crema, peppers and cream) and a mushroom quesadilla, as well as a michalada for Chad and beer for me. The food was excellent and we enjoyed our lunch a lot. 

After lunch we stopped into the pretty little church on the main plaza and then went to a cafe with a terrace. We shared a rompopo flavored frappuccino for dessert, finally getting our rooftop peña view. Then we sent Ivan and WhatsApp message to pick us up. There was a bit of traffic on the way home but we arrived back before 3 p.m. as we planned.

We were glad we made the trip, but it isn’t something I would call a must-do in Mexico like so many of the blogs I read had presented it. Although we weren’t super-impressed by the pena hike, it was a fun day overall and it was cool to see such a large rock monolith.