An exciting few days!

Mum, you remember the time that Corene Taylor and I decided to play in the muddy vegetable garden one spring way back when and we got stuck and thought it would be a good idea to just lay Corene's coat out like an island and sit on it until help came? Well, I had similar experience just the other day, though I must say this mud time was much more fun and with fewer consequences.

This week I went to a mud volcano about 60 kms north of Cartagena. I wasn't sure exactly how this phenomenon works, so I have taken the liberty of finding someone else's definition online. According to this source, a mud volcano is

created by natural gases emitted by decaying organic matter underground. As the mud is pushed upwards by the gas, it deposits and hardens above ground. As more mud oozes out and spills over the edge it grows in size, gradually forming what you can see today - a miniature volcano with a rich, creamy mud crater at the top.

Well, I must say, when we arrived it certainly wasn't what I expected. As we came to the top of a hill, our taxi driver pointed to what, from that angle, looked like a gigantic ant hole at the end of the road. At the bottom of the hill were the usual kiosks and vendors selling everything to make a buck, even empty pop bottles filled with mud from the volcano for its curative purposes. After paying my 2,500 peso entry, I made my way up the wobbly looking stairs to the crater of the volcano. When I got to the top I found a crater of about 3 or 4 metres squared full of gooey grey mud, laughing Grey People, and screaming, SCREAMING babies who wanted to be anywhere but in this scary unidentifiable muck.

It's funny because I really had no idea what to expect when I arrived there. I hadn't really imagined what it might be like once inside the volcano. Well, first of all, something completely understandable but something I hadn't thought about at all is that because this IS a volcano of sort, it is also bottomless. Try as you might, you won't find a bottom. This may worry you, but sinking to the bottom is impossible. The consistence of the mud is such that you actually have to work quite hard to get yourself covered in it. Its actually easier to roll yourself in the mud than to submerge yourself. It has a kind of puddingy texture. You can float in it, but you can't swim. If you set out to 'swim' to the other side of the crater you will find yourself paddling with all your might and moving very little. I actually got into the pool in the most unorderly way, but very 'Laura' nonetheless. Apparently, along the edge of the crater there is a ledge. The guy told me to step there, which I did but unfortunately I only got the edge of the ledge and lost my grip. Well, you can imagine what happened next. That foot sunk into the mud, and I fell backwards with one foot deep in the mud, my face up to the sky, and the other leg still clean and sticking up and over the edge. Very lady-like. Myself, and my companions (Niamh, Fabio, Alicia, and Gabrielle) played around in the mud for around 2 hrs. The girls got massages from the guys working there and though they looked divine I have learnt from my last massage experience in Cusco and declined the offer... multiple times. haha.

After getting out of the mud you have the problem that you are now covered, quite literally, from head to toe in mud. Solution: down to the river. Now, this was an interesting experience. Upon arriving I realized that it was not so much a river, or a lake, or a pond, but rather a bog, wherein I was about to clean myself off in. Not being a huge fan of water I can't see through, and particularly, water with millions of little lily pads, I was a little reluctant to entre. Fortunately, there were some nice ladies standing by the edge and one of them led me safely in. When we got out far enough she told me to sit, and at that point I realized that these women were here to help us wash off. This was an extremely peculiar experience, I felt like a little baby all over again. This woman had a little bowl and she used it to pour the swampy water all over me, washing my hair, washing the mud off my back and shoulders, and even sticking her finders in my ears to get any stray mud out of there. Then, before I knew it ***WAM BAM RACK OF LAMB*** the lady had my bikini top off and was washing it clean in the swamp!!! Wow, talk about a shocker! And I couldn't stop laughing for the life of me. I tried to warn my friend Niamh who was a couple metres away being bathed by another woman, but couldn't easily since my lady kept pouring water over my head. Then, after replacing my top, she ordered me to take off my bottoms so she could wash them off too. This was ok though since the water I was sitting in came up high enough. Anyway, she got me quite clean and it was a really fun experience in all.

My second exciting trip was probably the most adventurous so far of my travels. A couple days ago Niamh, Fabio and I thought we might like to check out this famous Playa Blanca (White Beach). There are several ways of getting there, and I guess we took the most inconvenient. The easiest way to get there is to do a tour of some other islands and then on the way back to Cartagena they stop at the beach for lunch and a swim, but if you like you can just get off and stay a few days. Instead, because we weren't too keen on the island tour we thought we would just get there on our own. The easiest way to do this is to get a taxi down to the market (ew so dirty) and get a boat from there to the island where the beach is. This we did. However, after finding a boat and sitting on it for an hour waiting for it to leave, we eventually got off after several other locals because they didn't think it was going to leave. Probably better that way since the boat looked over capacity anyway. Unfortunately the boat left about 10 minutes after we got out.

We decided then that we would try the longer and more complicated voyage. This meant taking a bus (ours had excellent taste in decor!), then a ferry, then a jeep or some kind of transport, then walking. A total of up to 3 hours. By this point two other women we had met a few days earlier had joined us. So off we went. Everything went smoothly and at every changing point the local people were very helpful in getting us oriented, until we had crossed on the ferry (aka a big canoe with two men frantically paddling against the current to reach the right spot on the other side). Once across we found that it was too late to get a jeep and all that was left was a group of young men waiting with their motorcycles. This is what we here call a mototaxi. The walk to the beach would have been about 3 hours longer and after weighing out options we decided to take the mototaxis to the next town and from there we would walk the last hour and a half. I don't know that I have ever been on a motorcycle, I think I have but can't remember when, but this was more fun than anything yet. Here we were, this convoy of five mototaxistas and their gringo clients. In fact, it was so much fun that by the time we got to the next town I was more than willing to pay the price all the way to the beach, and so that is what we did. And it was a good thing too, because while I thought the roads were rough getting to the town, they got far worse the farther we got from the town. Puddle after puddle, and deep ones too! I even had to get off and walk around a couple because we weren't sure if we could make it through. And the mud!!! I had a great time playing in the mud a few days earlier, but I wasn't much looking forward to falling into it that day. Finally, after much difficulty we finally arrived to the beach with smiles on every ones faces. I think I would have been happy to turn around and go back again through it. After making our way through, the 10,000 pesos we were paying them for the ride really didn't seem as much as it did at the beginning. So, in good 'Laura' fashion I offered them each a banana (of which unfortunately weren't in particularly great condition after the ride!).

The beach was absolutely gorgeous. However, we arrived at about 1pm and were starving, so rather than hitting the beach we had some lunch..... great fish!! By the time we had eaten, relaxed, and swam for a while (ooh, the water was soooo warm and blue! I could actually see through it, just as I like it) the sun was going down and it was getting cooler. Unfortunately, after going though hell to get to the beach (a very amusing hell) the lovely electric storm we admired that night across the sea actually turned into a horrible storm that lasted from the middle of the night onto about 3pm the following afternoon. At that point we were thoroughly unimpressed and decided to return to Cartagena rather than spending another night. Although the weather is nice now, it rained again this morning so I don't regret the decision. Plus, had we stayed we would have had to either stay the night with the French religious fanatic Gilbert, or with the crazy pathological lying German, Raymondo. The German was definitely more entertaining.

Anyway, that's it for now. Onto new adventures!