Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Totumo: A Gringo in Cartagena's Mud Volcano

I had heard about Totumo Volcano from lots of sources. It's one of the touristy things that people do when they visit Cartagena. All I'd seen was pictures of people covered in mud. I talked to a lot of my students, and was surprised at how many of them had been to the mud volcano. Getting covered in mud doesn't seem like Ariel's cup of tea, so, when she was in California visiting her mom, I was bored and decided to go.


First, I had to find a way to get there. I did some internet research and found a few sites that would sell you a ticket for like $90, but they didn't give much information. I decided to look around the city center for tourist places that take you. I'd seen people on the side of the street with like, posterboard signs with the mudded up white people pictures on them. I figured they would be the cheapest/most willing to haggle. I walked all around the center and didn't find a single posterboarder. Next, I went into a tourist adventure seller's place. I talked to three different places and they all had the same price, so I bought my ticket from Adventure Tours Colombia, on Calle La Factoria, right across from my school (could have saved myself half a day) for 45,000 pesos (about 15 bucks), don't buy tickets online. They called someone and told them where I lived and asked if they had room for one more, then they told me the van would pick me up at 2:30, but to be ready early just in case.

I went down to the lobby of my building at 2:15, right when the bus agent, a very overweight Colombian woman, waddled in. She asked the doorman for me, and I said I was me and we waddled out to the bus together. She was excited I was good at Spanish, as I assume she is used to regular tourists, not returned missionaries. The "bus" was an old, Chinese make, mini-van with five seats in the back. This may seem disappointing, but it actually meant that my "tour group" was small, and that ended up being wonderful. The bus agent slunk in the passenger seat as I ducked my head into the van. The only other passengers in the van were two very white people in Teva sandals. It reaffirmed for me that Totumo is for tourists.

They were in the two seat bench and so I climbed behind them and sat in the back. We had awkward introductions, not names just where they were from (girl form New Zealand, boy from Australia - now they live in Queensland) and what they were doing in Colombia (traveling for a year, they had started in the U.S. and just come to South America the week before). Then we stopped at a hotel just up the road from my apartment and collected another couple. They had a nice Latin look about them, and I thought, "Oh good, some people from Bogota or Cali. Not tourists." It was not the case. They climbed in next to me and started speaking Portuguese. Freakin Brazilians!

The bus agent explained quickly how things would go for the day, in pretty good English. She said it would be an hour drive to the volcano. Through the tour we bought, we got free lockers at the volcano. They would massage us at the volcano for 4,000 pesos ($1.35). They would take our picture in the volcano with our camera for 4,000 pesos. They would provide showers for 4,000 pesos. Then the bus agent said that people didn't speak English at the volcano, and that the bus driver didn't speak English. Then she got out of the bus, climbed into a taxi and left. We started our drive towards the volcano.

I started to try to have the awkward introduction with the Brazilians in Spanish, but they told me their English was better. Great. But it was pretty great. The five of us talked about travel, the Olympics, Cartagena, and soccer. We bonded pretty well on that hour drive, and since I was the only one who spoke Spanish, and the one who had been in Cartagena the longest, I felt more like a guide than a fifth wheel.

When we pulled up to the volcano, it was better than I had imagined. It looked like a little land zit with crappy wooden stairs scaffolded onto it. The surrounding area was dominated by little huts, with what looked like villagers waiting to prey on the tourists coin. I loved it. We parked in front of the biggest and best looking hut and filed in. Our driver pointed to where the showers were (around the back of the building) and where the changing rooms/lockers were. We went into the locker room where they had curtains up if you needed to change. We were all wearing our swim suits, so we didn't have to change, just strip off our other clothes. The New Zealand girl laughed and said, "You guys can't judge me for my suit. I bought a 5 mil suit ($1.67) in Cartagena because I didn't want to ruin mine." Clever girl. We left our towels, wallets, clothes, and anything else of value in the lockers, except cameras if you wanted them to take pictures. Then they told us we had to leave our sandals too. That was the hardest part.


We walked gingerly through the pebble and broken glass parking lot, and started to climb the surprisingly firm wooden staircase. They had carved the stairs out of the mud itself and built wood around it to hold it in place. It was uneven and steep, but effective. Everyone stopped to take pictures, one benefit of our small group.

At the top you had a nice view of a valley and a cienega, which when you look it up translates to cienega, but it's basically a swamp. But you don't look at the view, you look down into a pit of dark mud about the size of a nice above ground pool, with monsters floating in it. When we got there, there were like four people covered completely in mud in one corner, plus the Colombian mud pit assistants, three men with mud only up to their necks wearing baseball hats. We handed our phones and cameras to the camera guy (tip: don't have your screen locked because you wont be able to touch your phone-because of the mud (come on, think Brazilian guy)) and he took pictures as we climbed into the mud. One of the pit assistants helped you find your footing as you climbed backwards down a handmade wooden ladder, whispering "relax, relax, head down, relax." When he had you floating on your back, he would push you river-log style to another assistant who would then begin to "massage" you. Basically they would just cover you in mud and rub your arms and legs, then flip you onto your stomach, so you have to hold your head up, and rub your back. Definitely not worth the 4 mil, unless you want to watch your friends be uncomfortable.

Then we just floated around a bit. it was weird. You couldn't sink. The best position was standing straight up. If you brought up a leg, you'd kind of make your body float up and lose your balance. The mud wasn't warm, but it wasn't really cold either. I expected it to be the consistency of mud I had experienced before, but it was more like thick water with small hard particles, like tiny bits of debris. The people that were there before us got out and the five of us just sort of "swam" around. One of the guys said the pit went down like a mile and a half, but I don't know how he measured it. So, it was nice to enjoy the peacefulness of just us five relaxing in the mud. Then a tour bus arrived and the party started.

All of a sudden, people were lined up around the ledge of the pit (notice, I've begun to call it a pit instead of a volcano, I feel like it's a more accurate description) looking at us like we were monsters. We moved back to a corner as the new arrivals were processed by the pit assistants. The new arrivals were hilarious. There was a girl from Ireland that was incredibly uncomfortable with the massage and had them stop. And then there was a group of large black women. They were yelling to each other in a language I didn't recognize. I thought it might be Portuguese, the Brazilians thought it might be an African dialect, the Aussie didn't know. It was Creole, French, Spanish and English. The group was from Haiti and mixed their tongues with the greatest of ease. The large black women were wearing very revealing swimsuits, especially for their size, and we all got a good look as they lowered their girth backward down the wooden ladder into the pit. They shouted and cursed as their flabby bodies floated of their own accord during the massages. They grabbed the scant cloth of their swimsuits and tried to reel a breast back into place as their leg floated up, and the Colombian man smeared mud on their neck. Overall it was hilarious. There were now probably about fifteen or twenty people in the mud, and it was like a messy rave (I assume). Everyone was having a good time, bumping into one another, laughing, and trying to gain some sort of control of their faculties. After about ten minutes of that everyone was told to get out. We had been in about 30 minutes longer than the tour group, so we didn't mind, but I felt bad that they were getting kicked out so soon.


As you climb another homemade (or artisanal if your prefer) ladder out of the pit, one of the pit assistants scrapes excess mud off your body. He also almost scrapped by shorts off my hips. I had to hold on to them or I would have been pantsed in full view of the Haitians. You then climb down a different set of mud/wood stairs, but this time the stairs are slick with mud. As you walk-slide down the side of the mountain, trying to keep your mud sodden drawers up, take a moment to enjoy the view.

At the bottom we started heading to where we had been told the showers were, but we were intercepted by a lady who pointed down a row of huts and said we had to get rinsed off down there first. My group didn't understand so I helped by telling them that "They want to rape us down there before we get showered off." I didn't know how accurate my joke was.

We walked down, what was once a path, towards the cienega. New Zealand had heard that they washed you off in the cienega, but had been told by her booking agent that it was too low for that. The path was downhill, lined by huts selling beer and snacks, and a pretty rough walk without shoes on. As the path leveled out, we saw a giant tub of water, the kind they usually have for cattle to drink out of. Colombian women literally appeared out of the woods as we approached. New Zealand was told she was going somewhere else and looked at us frantically as she was lead to a separate location. There was nothing we could do. We were ushered onto overturned crates and a woman took a Tupperware bowl, dipped it into the filthy water in the tank, and poured it over my head. The next five minutes were a blur. She scrubbed and picked at my hair. Splashed water in my face. I glanced over and saw two women waterboarding the girl from Brazil, while her boyfriend was on his feet, shaking his head and looking like he was trying to fight his washer woman off. I was stood up, turned around and my washer woman pulled my trunks away from my body, dumped water down my butt and scrubbed. I went to trying to clean the front of my shorts as best I could, so she wouldn't feel the need to help. It almost worked. Aussie had taken the Tupperware from his washer woman and was cleaning himself. I reached for mine, but was denied. Brazilian girl was holding onto her swimsuit for her life. Eventually I was pushed over the giant bucket and pail after pail of water was poured over my head. My washer woman then pulled a scrunchie from her fanny pack, put it on my wrist, forced me to look into her eyes and said, "Angelica, Angelica, Angelica." She wouldn't let go of my wrist until I repeated her name. No one else had a scrunchie on their wrist. "I think I just got engaged" I told Brazil.

New Zealand stumbled back onto the path as we started up towards the lockers. "We're all so quiet" I observed. "It's like we were just in a car accident or something" said Aussie. I said "Yeah, aren't we supposed to talk to a grown up if someone touches us like that?" New Zealand said she was just on the other side of the trees, she could see us, but there was a guy just sitting there nonchalant while her washer woman was "all up in" her bathing suit.

We got back to the locker room and they pointed behind the building where the showers were, if we wanted to wash off the cienega water. We did. We all rinsed off, amazed at how trusting we were of water tapped out of who knows where after being accosted with gross barrel water. As we were finishing, the Haitians came strolling up, tops off, breasts swaying in the wind. The Colombians loved it. We got changed, they gave us a free slice of watermelon, and then the people came to collect their tips. You paid them each, for whatever you used (massage, photos (and got your camera back), and washer woman). After Angelica had claimed her money and her scrunchie, we were piled back into the van and went home.

The whole thing took about four hours. I wouldn't do it again, unless I was with someone who I would enjoy watching be uncomfortable, but I'm glad I did it the once.

2 comments:

  1. It was a different experience. Too bad Ariel didn't go!

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  2. most I've laughed in MONTHS! Thank you, James. I'm glad you still have your suit.

    ReplyDelete