A Volcano Mud Bath? Let's Go!

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At the airport just outside of Medellin, we checked in for flight to Cartagena. I'm usually not fond of flying during a trip, because I like seeing the countryside in between place, but after some 12-16 hour bus trips already, flying seemed pretty attractive. And Mauricio had advised us to fly to the coast because the scenery along the way doesn't vary much. And a 1 hour flight in place of a 14 hour bus ride seems like a good decision, especially considering, the cost of flying domestically within Colombia is not much higher than taking the bus.

Inside security we found the Avianca lounge. Oh the perks of Star Alliance Gold membership! I only had to fly 50,000 miles in the last year to get it... Thanks, work! This is the reward for all those long hours away from home. The lounge itself was alright, and we had some light snacks and some juice. They were out of beer though, which was a huge disappointment. Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that I got status for free from business travel, I'd never bother going into any lounges. They're just ok. They're quiet, which is good, and they have some snacks and drinks which is good, but none of it is that good. It wouldn't be worth paying to get it, is all I'm saying. If it's free, I'll go all day long. Can't complain about free!

After a while, one of the Avianca attendants came by and told us we could take an earlier flight if we wanted to, since we only had carry on. So we grabbed our bags and headed to the gate, but they waved us away and said the plane was full. We assumed we'd just missed out and someone had beaten us to it. So we headed back up to the lounge, and the lady that sent us down to the gate was surprised to see us again, so we explained that the plane was full. She called down again, and led us to the gate this time, and yeah, they did have two seats left. Things like this seem to happen quite a bit to us in Colombia, where they tell us they “have no beds, oh but actually we do.” Or “have no seats, oh but actually we do.” Not sure, but it works out.

So we ended up getting into Cartagena about an hour earlier than planned. What service! And the advantage of carry on I guess.

In Cartagena we went straight to a taxi and to our hostel. The hostel seems just ok. We met Peter from Poland, and went for a walk along the city wall at sunset and grabbed dinner together. Sunset along the wall was pretty nice, and the old city glows in the orange light.

We went back to the hostel to bed, and I have to retract my “just ok” rating and change it to “pretty poor”. It was noisy, and bright. There was a window at the end of my bed that opened to the lobby, and the light was on all night, so it was annoying. It did have air conditioning, but because the window to the lobby didn't seal, it didn't really work that well. Better than nothing though! It is still high season, so we'll take what we get.

The Exito supermarket down the road was our source for breakfast the next morning, and then we walked to the big fort. Man it was hot out. We spent about 45 minutes with an English tour guide who explained some fort facts to us. This was the most important port on the Caribbean for some time, and the Spanish had it well defended. The town was attacked many times, and was more or less successfully defended thanks to the narrow entrance to the harbour and a network of forts along the bay that stretches far away from the city. Of note, the defence was led fora while by a one legged one armed man who led the Spanish forces and successfully defended the city from the British.

So how's that for an embarrassment, losing to a guy with one arm and one leg. He would later lose his other leg in another battle (which they still won) and ultimately died from that injury. Shades of the black knight from Monty Python.

There is also a big network of tunnels in the fort that I spent some time exploring while Vanessa sat in the shade. They're designed to transmit sound for easy communication, and also so they can hear any enemies coming if they make it in. There's lot's of dark nooks where soldiers can hide, and it's quite a maze and easy to get lost. It's really cleverly designed.

Did I mention how hot it was? We were melting. We'd dodged most of the extreme heat so far in Colombia by staying in the mountains and away from the coast, but now we were suffering a bit.

There was a mall close to the fort so we popped in there for some free air conditioning. Also, malls have ice cream. We grabbed some lunch at Crepes and Waffles, which was delicious. It's a chain we'd eaten at in Bogota, but we weren't sorry to find it here in Cartagena. We ended up spending a lot of time in that mall, doing not a whole lot except staying out of the heat.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back to the old town, but walking was out of the question, so we grabbed a taxi. We walked around the old town, which reminds us both a lot of Havana and Cuba in general, you know, what with all the colonial Spanish buildings. But something's missing here. Havana had something else. An energy, or an atmosphere. We had been really looking forward to Cartagena, so it's not quite up to our lofty expectations I guess.

We walked along the walls again, and watched some kite surfers on the Carribean for a while as they tackled the evening sea breeze. We grabbed a cheap dinner in the square and had some tasty fish with creole sauce. Yum!

That was all we managed to do, and we headed back to the hostel to shower off the layer of sweat that still lingered on our bodies from the midday heat, and went to bed.

So that was it for that hostel. Our two nights were up, but we'd decided to spend one more night in Cartagena and had booked another hostel deeper in the old town for one last night. We went to what we thought was our new hostel but it turns out we'd booked a different hostel down the street with an almost identical name. I guess they're connected somehow, but it all worked out.

We had popped into that hostel the day before and booked the tour for the mud volcano (which I'll get to in a minute, and was our whole reason for staying an extra day) but they had misunderstood and thought we were trying to book it for the day before. So the day before they showed up and were looking for us. Well, we thought we were pretty clear, but we booked it using our Spanish, so we're probably 50% to blame here, at least...

At any rate, we made arrangements for the tour that afternoon, and went to get breakfast. We ate eggs, plantains and tomatoes at a cheap place in the square, and it was a pretty satisfying way to start the day.

Back at our hostel, we tried to make some arrangements for the rest of our trip, and decided to go to Tolu next. So we booked a place there, and mostly just killed time until our mud volcano tour. We walked around a bit, got money, and ate at Crepes and Waffles again, which is now apparently our favourite Colombian chain restaurant of all time. It really is delicious.

We moseyed back to other hostel to wait for our tour which was set to leave at 2 pm. And an hour later they picked us up... But we were the last to be picked up, so waiting had its upside. If we were first, we would have been shuttled around in a van for an hour while they made other pickups. So this was better anyway.

Off to the mud volcano!

Is it really a volcano? I'm not sure. Probably not, but it sure looks like a tiny volcano. It's a cone of dirt about 50 feet high, and inside is a mix of mud and water that's heated geothermally. People come to bathe in the muddy mineral waters, get the mud massaged all over their body, and absorb the supposedly therapeutic value of the whole experience. WE thought it sounded like a pretty silly time, so that's why we were here.

After about an hours drive, we arrived and left our stuff at the tour operators office. We climbed up the wooden steps to the top of the mud volcano and climbed down the ladder into what looks like a mud filled mine shaft. There were already about a dozen people inside taking there turns soaking it all in and being covered in mud.

Stepping into the mud, it felt warm, and was more watery than maybe what you're picturing. You definitely float in it, and you're not just sitting on it or anything. And because it's so much denser than water, we were very floaty. I don't think you could sink your whole body under it if you tried. And I did try. It's like floating in a warm bathtub full of mud. And you can't touch the bottom, but you never really sink any deeper than your belly button anyway. In fact, this makes you a bit top heavy, so you have to keep yourself balanced straight up or else you'll tip over and end up floating on your back. Not that this is really a problem, but there's lots of other people in the mud pit, so it's good practice not to take up too much room.

The first thing that happens when you enter the mud volcano is a guy grabs you and takes you over to the side and rubs the mud all over you while you lie flat on your back. This “massage” is done by a professional, in that he gets paid, but it's not to be confused with an actual massage. He just rubs mud all over you, until you're covered. Then the guy you paid to hold your camera takes some pictures of you. Then you float around until you're ready to get out. It's pretty fun.

During our floaty time, we got chatting to a Texan named Josh. He heard that they claim that the pit is bottomless, which does explain why we couldn't touch the bottom... but still, bottomless???? That's a little unnerving.

I looked it up later, and it's not actually bottomless. But it is 2300 meters deep, so it might as well be... Considering I was so buoyant in the muddy soup that I couldn't dunk my head, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Every now and then the volcano would burp, and bubbles would come up through the mud. I swear that's what it was, and not a bunch of farts...

When we'd had enough floating still, we climbed out up the ladder. Things were different on the outside world than they were before. For example, I weighed about 50 pounds more than I did, thanks to the layer of mud on my body. This was quite a shock as I first tried to pull myself up onto the ladder. Don't worry, I made it.

Then there's another guy that scoops the bulk of the mud off of you with his hands and it drops back into the pit below. The next phase of our journey was to amble down the steps (carefully, because they're covered in mud now and very slippery), across a field of rocks in our bare feet, and into the nearby lagoon. Then old women help wash you off, and take off your bathing suit and rinse it off for you. So you sit naked for a bit in lagoon. But the mud being washed off of everybody keeps everything concealed.

Then we walked back across the rocky path in our barefeet (with our bathing suits back on), relatively clean. I stopped at the mud volcano and it was a cool sight to see one staircase with clean people in bathing suits going up, and people covered in mud coming down the other side. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me for this moment, so you'll just have to imagine how funny that looked.

We went back to the tour operators office to shower and pay for our massages, the photos they took, and being cleaned off in the lagoon. Altogether this was only about 12000 pesos ($6) so not a bad deal at all. Of course that didn't include the cost of the van ride, but that wasn't too bad either.

I went out to take some more pictures before we drove into the sunset, back to Cartagena.

On the highway, we passed by an iguana that had been smashed in half by a passing truck or car or something. It was huge! It was probably the size of a deer. That's Colombian road kill in these parts.

We were the first dropped off, which gave us time to head over to a place called La Cevicheria which was recommended in Lonely Planet. It was alright, but not as good as what we had in Bogota. We were a little disappointed, since it had been a little built up in Lonely Planet.

Actually, that kind of sums up Cartagena: Built up in our minds, and a little disappointing in reality. Maybe we would have like it better if we didn't go into it with such high expectations. The walled city filled with colonial buildings is nice, but there's not really much going on otherwise. The city is a bit sterile otherwise, and there are lots of tall condos for the countries wealthy to have Caribbean vacation property. There's not even really a good beach in Cartagena. We'd probably been a bit spoiled in Cuba with all the buildings there, and Cuba's time-capsule vibe. Basically what I'm saying is, we miss Cuba...

Overall though, I'm really glad we went, and the mud volcano was really fun. There are some island boat tours you can do that sound really nice, and take you to some good beaches if that's what you're after. And there's lots of restaurants in town, so you're bound to find something delicious. Maybe if I had the courage, I'd have tried my hand a kite boarding...

Actually, one of the more tempting activities we saw advertised were sailboat tours to Panama. If we were on an unlimited time available sort of trip, we definitely would have snagged one of those and just kept on slowly working our way up through Central America... Someday...

But not today. We have more of Colombia to see. It really is a big country, and we're not even going to see even close to half of it in our five weeks, but we'll be able to hit a few spots along the Caribbean coast before returning to Bogota. Our next stop is Tolu!

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Photos

Condos In the Background
Keeping those condos safe