Colombia
El Cerrito

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  • Day 135

    Ankunft an der Karibikküste

    February 21, 2019 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Wir kommen aus den kolumbianischen Bergen und fahren an die Karibikküste. Cartagena, die schönste Stadt, fahren wir als erstes an, um mit der Agentur die Verschiffung nach Panama zu besprechen. Es bleibt erstmal nur ein kurzer Aufenthalt.

    Wir wollen schnell zu den Karibikstränden und beginnen mit dem schönen Strand von Playa Render. Hier kitesurfen wir ganz alleine und relaxen am Strand im Schatten eines Baumes. Am Abend kommen wieder einmal besorgte Polizisten und empfehlen uns einen anderen, sichereren Übernachtungsplatz. Dieser entpuppte sich leider als Mautstation. Wir verbringen hier zwar eine sichere aber sehr unruhige Nacht. Am frühen Morgen wird es unerträglich warm und die LKWs, die gerade von der Mautstation beschleunigen, fahren direkt an unserem "Schlafzimmer" vorbei. Es wird Zeit für uns einen schönen Strand zu suchen. Diesen finden wir nach einigen Kilometern in Las Salinas.

    Las Salinas ist der wohl beste Kitesurfspot Kolumbiens. Leider ist der Strand übersät von Treibholz. Das ist hier zu dieser Jahreszeit aber normal. Einige Strände sind gar nicht nutzbar, aber hier finden wir noch Platz, um die Kiteschirme zu starten und zu landen. Endlich kann Jens mal wieder Windsurfen und auch Regina hat mit dem kleinen Kite viel Spaß in den Wellen. Hier tummeln sich auch andere Kitesurfer mit denen wir uns anschließend noch etwas unterhalten. In der Bucht gibt es ein kleines einfaches Restaurant, das von einer Familie betrieben wird, die mit ihren vielen Kindern, in sehr einfachen Verhältnissen, direkt am Strand wohnt. Vor deren Haus übernachten wir sehr erholsam und ruhig. Hier verbringen wir einige Tage und erholen uns etwas von den Strapazen des Reisens. Kurz vor unserer Abreise schrottet Jens leider noch unseren 9er Kite, um dessen Reparatur wir uns nun noch kümmern müssen.
    Hier ein kurzes Video vom Wassersport: https://youtu.be/xp679SqOCXs
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  • Day 128

    Getting the mud off

    February 4, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    The next thing to do is to go to the lake nearby to get the mud off. Here again, the enterprising locals were standing all over the lake shore with a small half cut plastic can and using that as a mug to pour water on anyone entering the water to clean off the mud. This was so ridiculous 😨😨 imagine using the water from the lake to pour small mugs of water on people entering the lake... Unbelievable!! 🤣🤣
    We just pushed past them and headed for deeper water. On seeing this they started shouting "peligro.. peligro.." (dangerous.. dangerous..) to us. We completely ignored their warnings and had a nice swim to wash off all the muck off us. After frolicking around for 10-15 min, we came out clean... Almost 😁
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  • Day 128

    Mud monsters

    February 4, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    As soon as Hristo came in, we moved away to one corner. To move, we had to lie on our back and use our arms to move. Here, we tried doing different stuff with the gooey muck. We realized that if we stood straight, our legs would go straight down without touching anything. We tried to push further down and were able to get down to our necks but would blob out as soon as we stopped pushing down. It was yucky but fun 😁😁Read more

  • Day 128

    Totumo mud volcano

    February 4, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The van arrived to pick us up a bit late and we along with about 10 other people started towards Totumo halfway between Cartagena and Barranquilla. We reached El Totumo around 3:30 pm.

    El Totumo Mud Volcano is an active mud volcano located near sea level in northern Colombia. It is a local tourist destination, popular for its alleged healing mud bath. It is the smallest volcano in the country. The mound has a height of about 15 m and is accessible via a staircase that leads to the crater. There is a small place at the crater where 10-15 can stand around before going down about 4-5 meters via another wooden ladder into the thick mud of the pool. There's a separate ladder to come out from the pool.

    A mud volcano or mud dome is a landform created by the eruption of mud or slurries, water and gases. A mud volcano or mud dome is a landform created by the eruption of mud or slurries, water and gases. The mud produced by mud volcanoes is mostly formed as hot water, which has been heated deep below the earth's surface, begins to mix and blend with subterranean mineral deposits, thus creating the mud slurry exudate. This material is then forced upwards through a geological fault or fissure due to local subterranean pressure imbalances.
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  • Day 18–19

    Galerazamba

    February 9, 2024 in Colombia ⋅ 🌬 31 °C

    Petite ville très tranquille, ou se situent des bassins servant a récupérer le sel marin.

  • Day 17–18

    Loma de arena ~ El Totumo

    February 8, 2024 in Colombia ⋅ 🌬 30 °C

    Petite ville tranquille des caraïbes, où se situe un volcan de boue.

  • Day 19

    Tour - El Totumo

    September 8, 2022 in Colombia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Nachdem wir uns über den Transport zu der Tintipan Insel und nach Santa Marta informiert hatten, haben wir am Nachmittag an einer Tour zum Vulkan "El Totumo" teilgenommen. Dieser Vulkan ist ein Schlamm-Vulkan, welchem verjüngende Effekte nachgesagt werden. Somit war das Highlight, dass wir ein warmes Schlammbad nahmen. Der zähflüssige Schlamm ist so schwer, dass man nicht absinkt und man das Gefühl des Schwebens hat. Im Anschluss an dieses Bad wuschen wir uns im See neben dem Vulkan und nach einem kleinen Imbiss und Getränk traten wir wieder die Rückreise an.Read more

  • Day 523

    El Totumo 🌋

    June 5, 2021 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    A mud volcano somewhere in nowhere.

    El volcán del Totumo es un cono volcánico lleno de lodo. La formación presenta una escasa elevación (aproximadamente de veinte metros) para llegar a su cráter es preciso ascender por una rústica escalera de madera.

    😋
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  • Day 128

    Into the mud pool

    February 4, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    This place is a well organized money making machine for the locals. The tour vans have a tie up with one of the local shack huts. All the tourists are invited to go in. These places have joint lockers which people can share to store their valuables while they frolic in the mud. At least, this service is free. Each of these shacks then provide a person who can carry the phones and cameras to take pictures, of course for a charge of 4000 COP. This charge is per person irrespective of number of equipment. So, if the 3 of us wanted pictures from the same phone, he would charge 12000 COP else he would make sure only one person is captured in the pictures. We decided to use only one phone and I negotiated a price of 8000 COP for the 3 of us. When we reached the top, Maria found the mud and the place quite disgusting and decided to drop out, so we took our phone back from the "photographer" and gave it to her. He, of course was not happy about it and kept badgering her with words. But, there was not much he could do since even Maria had fully paid the entry. Now with the camera with Maria, we got some very good pictures. I was first in and as soon as I was in the mud the "helpful" locals started putting mud all over me. Hristo who was following me down the ladder, kept reminding me "there's no free lunch, particularly in Latin America". So I kept telling them "No necesito" and tried to move away. But, I found that getting onto the stomach didn't help at all since the body would float above the mud and it was not possible to swim. Luckily, by this time Hristo reached the bottom of the ladder and the locals pounced on him instead.Read more

  • Day 8

    Volcan El Totuma

    June 26, 2015 in Colombia ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    I just had to go to Volcan El Totumo after reading about it as it seemed like a lot of good fun. Our B&B arranged transport for us and so off we went on a hot and humid Friday morning.

    The drive to Volcan El Totumo took about an hour. Leaving Cartagena, we took a road that hugged the hot and dry coast east of Cartagena. There were many new luxury developments on the northern side of the road along the coast, and on the southern side of the road we saw less privileged families living in run down housing. It was quite a contrast.

    Arriving at the volcano, we saw that it looked like a giant anthill. We followed the drill:
    - Climb up the stairs.
    - Strip down to trunks.
    - Hand your footwear to one guy, hand your camera to another guy who will take photos of you and your party.
    - Climb down the ladder into the squishy mud.
    - Once you're in the mud, someone grabs you, floats you on your back, massages you (or rubs mud into your skin - I couldn't quite tell), flips you over, massages you some more, and then pushes you away into a corner so that he can massage his next customer.
    - Once you've had your fill, you climb up the other ladder where someone will flick mud off you back into the crater (suggestion: when you're in the mud, don't hang out under this ladder).
    - Descend the hill, walk to nearby freshwater lake.
    - At the lake, a woman with a small pail will grab you by the hand, pour water all over you to wash off the mud, and violate your ear orifices. She'll then instruct you to take off your trunks. Horrors, the lake is shallow so you have no choice but to flash her. She'll then wash your trunks and hand them back to you.
    - At the shore, the guy who took your footwear and the guy who took your camera will be waiting for you. Before you get back to your car, the massage guy will also show up.

    Here's where things got iffy. The camera guy, the footwear guy, the massage guy and the old lady will all descend on you to ask for payment. Nothing is negotiated beforehand but the going rate seems to be COP10,000 for the massage and COP3,000 for everybody else. I had read about this but boneheaded me left the small change at our B&B so we had to scramble to get small change, and we had to pay some of them in USD.
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-volcan-…

    Once we were all cleaned up, we headed back to Cartagena. When we got back to our Les Lezards and got back online, we found that social media had gone crazy with news that the Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage throughout the U.S. What a great day!

    https://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colomb…
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