Peña de Bernal
Interesting facts
- Tourism sources often rank Peña de Bernal as the third-largest monolith on Earth, after the Rock of Gibraltar and Rio de Janeiro's Sugarloaf Mountain.
- Estimates of the rock's age differ sharply between studies, ranging from roughly 8.7 million to about 67 million years.
- In November 2007 the rock was chosen as one of the 13 Wonders of Mexico in a national competition.
- For the Otomí-Chichimeca, Bernal forms a sacred triangle with the nearby hills of El Zamorano and El Frontón, domes built of similar lava.
- Pilgrims from surrounding communities carry crosses regarded as miraculous up the sacred hills to pray for rain in this dry semi-desert.
- Local families keep small private chapels dedicated to their ancestors, part of the living tradition recognised by UNESCO in 2009.
- As offerings, communities raise chimales, temporary structures of reeds roofed with leaves, which serve as emblems of endurance and belonging.
- On the final vertical pitch, metal rungs fixed into the rock serve both as a climbing aid and as the usual line of descent.
- Bernal received the status of Pueblo Mágico in 2005, recognising the village as one of Mexico's culturally distinctive small towns.
Why it is worth it
Peña de Bernal rises straight out of the semi-arid hills of Querétaro state in central Mexico, a single, sheer-sided mass of grey rock that stands roughly 350 metres above the village at its foot, with its summit at about 2,510 metres above sea level. It is often counted among the tallest monoliths in the world, and from the cobbled streets of San Sebastián Bernal it fills the sky behind every rooftop.
Geologists describe the rock as an endogenous volcanic dome: thick, almost solid lava pushed up into older marine rocks without ever spilling out as a flow. Once volcanic activity ceased, erosion stripped away the softer material around it over millions of years, leaving the hard core exposed as the tower seen today. The name has an old Spanish root — "bernal" was a word applied to a large, elongated, isolated crag — while the Otomí and Chichimeca names for the place both mean "in the middle of two".
The village at its foot was founded on the rock's slopes in 1641, when Captain Cristóbal Hernández Tovar received land here and brought in Spanish families to settle it; Bernal was later named one of Mexico's Pueblos Mágicos. The rock carries deep meaning for the Otomí-Chichimeca people of the surrounding region: in 2009 UNESCO inscribed "Places of memory and living traditions of the Otomí-Chichimecas people of Tolimán: the Peña de Bernal, guardian of a sacred territory" on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Pilgrims climb to a small chapel at the highest point reachable on foot, and every 21 March, at the spring equinox, thousands gather around the rock in a festival that blends religion and popular belief in its energy. Above the hiking path, the final stretch to the summit is a near-vertical section of about 45 metres, and the rock's faces carry equipped routes that draw climbers from across Mexico.
Getting there
Peña de Bernal stands beside the village of Bernal in the municipality of Ezequiel Montes, about 57 km from the city of Querétaro. The nearest larger town is Tequisquiapan, about 26 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Querétaro Intercontinental Airport (QRO), about 29 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Peña de Bernal is a 433-metre (1,421 ft) monolith, one of the tallest in the world. It is located in San Sebastián Bernal, a small town in the Mexican state of Querétaro. It is one of the most touristic sites near the capital of Querétaro.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
20.74966, -99.94564per Wikidata