Mud bath in Cartagena
A short flight up from the capital Bogotá is the Caribbean seaside town of Cartagena, neatly divided into the old and new towns by a mostly intact city wall. Inside the ring of cannons and towers is a beautifully preserved colonial town much improved by brightly coloured buildings, wooden balconies and flowers crammed in every available space. The town squares always seemed to be in use, whether for the ongoing music festival, a wedding or a huge graduation ceremony.
Arriving from the airport at about 2pm I transferred to the lovely Hotel Villa Colonial, where I met the other members of the group and we all headed out to sample the local rum until the early hours of the following day. Bright eyed and eager I got up at 8am to have a wander round town before it got too hot. By 9am it was 32?C and by 11 it had climbed to 38C at which point I gave in and went to lay with the others on the hotel balcony. Rum appeared and the rest of the day disappeared, although we did end up in someone’s front garden at 3am, sharing our 4th bottle with the owners of the house.
The following day we set off bright and early to visit a mud volcano, supposedly just an hour down the road. Two and a half hours later we were still trundling along in a tiny bus with no leg room and arrived at a rather man-made looking cauldron of mud, with queues of people wandering up clean and coming down caked in the thick grey mud, before walking into the sea and having it washed off by an army of helper women.
The next day was one I was looking forward to with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, as we’d booked ourselves on a scuba course. Being a ropey swimmer at best I wasn’t sure this was a great idea, but on the 45 minute speedboat ride out to the island school the Caribbean waters looked warm and clear, so where better.
For what felt like a very short time we donned our gear and bobbed up and down in the hotel pool, learning various recovery techniques and how to swim with flippers. Fully trained and a huge lunch later we reboarded the speedboat and zipped out to a reef where we were unceremoniously pushed out the boat backwards and descended 40ft (12m) where I suddenly realised how easy it all was and happily pottered around having a great time.
Back on the surface the boat sped us toward the mainland, whilst another speedboat chased us, which whilst I didn’t mention it did seem reminiscent of the stories of pirates off Somalia, but we managed to outrun them so didn’t get to experience the joys of a good kidnapping.
That evening, buoyed by our success at not sinking we decided to sample the nightlife in the old town, and after a few bars happened upon an attempt at recreating a German Bierkellar, complete with kegs of Colombian beer, steins and busty (if not blonde) barmaids in odd German outfits.
