Mud Volcano
Tuesday, August 22nd - finally were given a room around 13:00, slept for a few hours and even after that i was definitely feeling a bit sick. Dr Cristina has declared i have the flu, but no the bright side somehow flu sounds adorable with her accent.
Our hotel here in Cartagena is comfortable but mostly soullessly generic. But the breakfast are at least very good generic food, and there's a very elegant restaurant on the roof and a pool. Though unfortunately you can't see the sunset from up there as it's right behind another big hotel.
The neighborhood around the hotel I'd probably feel fine walking around in if this wasn't Colombia. But this is Colombia and we're paranoid about unsafe situations. A big consideration when booking the hotel was to be near the beach, but the nearby beach is a dark clay-y sand with no palm trees for shade or aesthetics. Just the grey sand between the waves, a highway and the mountains entirely non dodgy neighborhood. So we aren't exactly hanging out at the beach here. Which means when we're relaxing back at the hotel we're usually just holed up in the room, which isn't my favorite thing.
At some point we saw a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees car let someone out at our hotel. I'm used to seeing such things in Africa but didn't quite expect it here. Are they here about Venezuelan refugees?
Wednesday, August 23rd - after breakfast we went to talk to the tourism person in the lobby. I mentioned I wanted to go to the mud volcano, since i was still feeling very subpar and it sounded like the most relaxing option. We were told the tour bus to the mud volcano was leaving in 5 minutes! We quickly paid (300,000 pesos? /$75 for the two of us i think), ran up to the room to change into our swimwear and grab what we'd need, and ran back down just in time for the bus, which was already mostly full. We picked up one more batch of passengers, one of whom sat in a fold out seat in the aisle just beside me, who was literally obese, and not the way back had a wailing baby on her lap. Of all the passengers there was one couple who might have been from the US, everyone else appeared to be from the Caribbean or Latin America.
We drove like 45 minutes to the mud volcano. Just before we arrived our tour guide advised us that the locals provide several services for extra charges: keeping our towels and sandals for us; taking pictures with our phones; massaging us in the mud pool; and washing us off in the lake afterwards; all of which is a 5,000 peso ($1.20) charge.
Okay so we arrived to find a volcano shaped mound by a lake. I was a bit disappointed, i had assumed it was some kind of naturally occurring phenomena. I hope it's at least mud from the lake and maybe harkens back to some traditional practice, but if so they never bothered to explain.
So one hands one's sandals and towel to a man with a big bag by the start of the stairs up to the top. Then when it's your turn to go in hand your phone to the guy who takes pictures, then descended down into the square mud pool. It's smooth, a homogenous fine grain, a pleasant temperature. And of course one finds oneself much much more buoyant than one's experience with water would lead one to expect. Wallowing helplessly for a moment i was expertly grabbed by a local in the mud pool and maneuvered to the side, where he immediately proceeded to massage me. I was never asked if i wanted that, though i didn't mind. Cristina apparently told them she didn't want a massage and thus escaped it. She told me she just doesn't like massages but i kind of wonder if not a few women were reluctant to be massaged all over by strange dirty (literally at least) men in a mud pit -- it was only men working there. After a few minutes of massage i was shunted to the side near the exit ladder, where Cristina and i bobbed for another few minutes (we were in the mud for maybe ten minutes?) before climbing out.
Then we descended the mud volcano and proceeded to the lake maybe 50 meters away to wash off. Here the local women were waiting to pour water on us. It seemed so entirely unnecessary that i tried to wave them off but this was ineffectual and it being only $1.20 I just gave up and let them pour water on us.
By and by when everyone was done it was time to leave. We were (finally) given our cell phones back and then it seems we needed to find the specific person who provided each service to us (they all came and thronged us looking for the specific people owing them). Altogether this was chaotic and there were a few recriminations about what was owed to who before it was all sorted out. Considering this was all over absurdly small amounts of money i really think they should just include it in the original price and pay those people in an organized manner or something. The payment process left a bad taste in some people's mouths i think. Amd all over a few dollars! And it's fortunate i had even happened to shove some pesos in my pocket before leaving, it would have been really disappointing to, after paying $75 for the experience to then have a second class experience for lack of having brought the equivalent of a few dollars.
Anyway from there we proceeded to a hotel right on the beach not far from there. Here we had lunch (included in the original fare) and lounged around for two or three hours. This beach was actually nice, though the weather was a bit overcast.
Then we came back to our hotel. The tourism lady called out to us as we crossed the lobby, asked us how it had been signed us up for the city tour the next day, and tried to sell us on day trips to the Rosario Islands for subsequent days. We have ten more days here and i don't want to spend them all holed up in this hotel or on $200 day trips to the islands every day -- I had seen hotels on the islands that looked nice in the $140/night range which seems acceptable to me (edit! I only just realized (Friday) that iwas looking at the two night totals. These nice hotels are under $100 a night!). The tourism lady tried to tell us there were no cheap hotels on the islands and then when i opened the hotels.com app and showed her one i was looking at she said it wasn't on the islands, so i clicked the map and it was on one of the islands she'd just mention. In general it'd found travel agents to be useless for anything other than booking specific local experiences. For anything else they're trying to push the packages they get the biggest kickback for on you whether it's best for your interests or not.
Anyway, relaxed a bit, swam in the rooftop pool around sunset (though as mentioned it itself was hidden), and had another pretty good dinner at the rooftop restaurant.
(Might add more pictures -- or might not! -- we're quickly taking an overwhelming number of photos that it may take some time to pick through)
Our hotel here in Cartagena is comfortable but mostly soullessly generic. But the breakfast are at least very good generic food, and there's a very elegant restaurant on the roof and a pool. Though unfortunately you can't see the sunset from up there as it's right behind another big hotel.
The neighborhood around the hotel I'd probably feel fine walking around in if this wasn't Colombia. But this is Colombia and we're paranoid about unsafe situations. A big consideration when booking the hotel was to be near the beach, but the nearby beach is a dark clay-y sand with no palm trees for shade or aesthetics. Just the grey sand between the waves, a highway and the mountains entirely non dodgy neighborhood. So we aren't exactly hanging out at the beach here. Which means when we're relaxing back at the hotel we're usually just holed up in the room, which isn't my favorite thing.
At some point we saw a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees car let someone out at our hotel. I'm used to seeing such things in Africa but didn't quite expect it here. Are they here about Venezuelan refugees?
Wednesday, August 23rd - after breakfast we went to talk to the tourism person in the lobby. I mentioned I wanted to go to the mud volcano, since i was still feeling very subpar and it sounded like the most relaxing option. We were told the tour bus to the mud volcano was leaving in 5 minutes! We quickly paid (300,000 pesos? /$75 for the two of us i think), ran up to the room to change into our swimwear and grab what we'd need, and ran back down just in time for the bus, which was already mostly full. We picked up one more batch of passengers, one of whom sat in a fold out seat in the aisle just beside me, who was literally obese, and not the way back had a wailing baby on her lap. Of all the passengers there was one couple who might have been from the US, everyone else appeared to be from the Caribbean or Latin America.
We drove like 45 minutes to the mud volcano. Just before we arrived our tour guide advised us that the locals provide several services for extra charges: keeping our towels and sandals for us; taking pictures with our phones; massaging us in the mud pool; and washing us off in the lake afterwards; all of which is a 5,000 peso ($1.20) charge.
Okay so we arrived to find a volcano shaped mound by a lake. I was a bit disappointed, i had assumed it was some kind of naturally occurring phenomena. I hope it's at least mud from the lake and maybe harkens back to some traditional practice, but if so they never bothered to explain.
So one hands one's sandals and towel to a man with a big bag by the start of the stairs up to the top. Then when it's your turn to go in hand your phone to the guy who takes pictures, then descended down into the square mud pool. It's smooth, a homogenous fine grain, a pleasant temperature. And of course one finds oneself much much more buoyant than one's experience with water would lead one to expect. Wallowing helplessly for a moment i was expertly grabbed by a local in the mud pool and maneuvered to the side, where he immediately proceeded to massage me. I was never asked if i wanted that, though i didn't mind. Cristina apparently told them she didn't want a massage and thus escaped it. She told me she just doesn't like massages but i kind of wonder if not a few women were reluctant to be massaged all over by strange dirty (literally at least) men in a mud pit -- it was only men working there. After a few minutes of massage i was shunted to the side near the exit ladder, where Cristina and i bobbed for another few minutes (we were in the mud for maybe ten minutes?) before climbing out.
Then we descended the mud volcano and proceeded to the lake maybe 50 meters away to wash off. Here the local women were waiting to pour water on us. It seemed so entirely unnecessary that i tried to wave them off but this was ineffectual and it being only $1.20 I just gave up and let them pour water on us.
By and by when everyone was done it was time to leave. We were (finally) given our cell phones back and then it seems we needed to find the specific person who provided each service to us (they all came and thronged us looking for the specific people owing them). Altogether this was chaotic and there were a few recriminations about what was owed to who before it was all sorted out. Considering this was all over absurdly small amounts of money i really think they should just include it in the original price and pay those people in an organized manner or something. The payment process left a bad taste in some people's mouths i think. Amd all over a few dollars! And it's fortunate i had even happened to shove some pesos in my pocket before leaving, it would have been really disappointing to, after paying $75 for the experience to then have a second class experience for lack of having brought the equivalent of a few dollars.
Anyway from there we proceeded to a hotel right on the beach not far from there. Here we had lunch (included in the original fare) and lounged around for two or three hours. This beach was actually nice, though the weather was a bit overcast.
Then we came back to our hotel. The tourism lady called out to us as we crossed the lobby, asked us how it had been signed us up for the city tour the next day, and tried to sell us on day trips to the Rosario Islands for subsequent days. We have ten more days here and i don't want to spend them all holed up in this hotel or on $200 day trips to the islands every day -- I had seen hotels on the islands that looked nice in the $140/night range which seems acceptable to me (edit! I only just realized (Friday) that iwas looking at the two night totals. These nice hotels are under $100 a night!). The tourism lady tried to tell us there were no cheap hotels on the islands and then when i opened the hotels.com app and showed her one i was looking at she said it wasn't on the islands, so i clicked the map and it was on one of the islands she'd just mention. In general it'd found travel agents to be useless for anything other than booking specific local experiences. For anything else they're trying to push the packages they get the biggest kickback for on you whether it's best for your interests or not.
Anyway, relaxed a bit, swam in the rooftop pool around sunset (though as mentioned it itself was hidden), and had another pretty good dinner at the rooftop restaurant.
(Might add more pictures -- or might not! -- we're quickly taking an overwhelming number of photos that it may take some time to pick through)