Volcán de Lodo: Colombian Pudding Joy

This one goes out to all my USCA-Lothlorien friends, and should most likely be completely ignored by my concerned and longsuffering mother.

All right then, old elves: remember those crazy days at UC Berkeley, when you lived with 65 of your best friends in the cooperative haven of Loth? Most specifically, remember Pudding Joy? (For the unitiated, Pudding Joy was an utterly bizarre tradition wherein, if memory serves correctly, we spread Saran Wrap all over the basement, covered the floor with gallons of pudding mix, and slid blissfully all over the place just because we could. Admit it, you all did some pretty weird stuff in college, too.)

I had thought that, alas, those days were behind me, but no! Today I went on a tour of the Volcán de Lodo--a mud volcano located in a mangrove forest about 45 minutes from Cartagena. It´s just about the weirdest thing I´ve ever seen or done in South America (keep in mind that this is coming from a person who´s eaten guinea pig and drank beer made with fermented human saliva.)

The bus takes you to the foot of the volcano: from there, you climb up a bunch of steps to get to the mouth of it, which is a sandy plateau around a burbling vat of tepid gray mud. You climb in wearing a swimsuit, and the locals massage the mud all over you in exchange for tips; supposedly, it has no less than 51 minerals and all kinds of healing properties. Once you´re well and entirely covered with mud, you can float around for as long as you can handle it before rinsing off in the mangrove swamp.

Words cannot describe how utterly, wonderfully, batshit insane the whole experience is, start to finish. You´re not quite swimming, you´re not quite standing, the bottom´s a couple hundred feet down and yet it´s utterly safe and quite relaxing, actually, once the cognitive dissonance wears off. It´s like a kinder, gentler, Spanish-speaking Pudding Joy.

Made an excellent final blowout for my week in Cartagena: tomorrow, I´m flying back to Quito, and then Sunday morning, I´m off to the States. It´s been a great experience, and there´s always more to see next time!

Too Tired to Blog: Picture´s Worth a Thousand Words Edition

Out late last night salsa dancing with Scottish people. Embarrasingly enough, I grew up 15 minutes from Mexico, but they dance a hell of a lot better than me.

End result: too tired to blog properly about the events of the day. Instead, have some pictures.

Random pretty church, somewhere in the old town.

Feeding the pigeons outside of Plaza de Bolivar.

Old street signs, Palacio de la Inquisicion (not shown: dozens upon dozens of replicated torture instruments, each captioned with the disclaimer that this particular torture instrument was NOT used in Cartagena).

Fancy church stuff. Monastery de Santo Domingo.

Islas de Rosario: Wow, That´s Poky

I went on a group tour of the Islas and Playa Blanca, one of Cartagena´s most beautiful beaches, yesterday. It was fabulous--mostly vacationing families from all different parts of Colombia, with a handful of tourists mixed in. The boat was enormous, with about 70 passengers: the guide divided us into two teams and pitted one against the other in a variety of insane challenges in order to pass the time while sailing to the Islas. Started harmlessly enough--what are the names of the four archipelagos closest to Cartagena, etc. Soon escalated into ¨which side of the boat can collect the most towels in 15 seconds or less¨, followed by the same drill, but with bikini tops instead, followed by a game in which each side of the boat used the bikini tops and towels to dress up one male contestant as a beauty queen. For the record, my side of the boat kicked ass--seems like the folks from Cali are fiestier than your average Colombian. And yes, all towels and bikini tops were very diligently returned to their rightful owners afterwards.

The Islas were gorgeous: we stayed on the main one for just an hour, so people who wanted to could visit the aquarium. Everyone else took a swim, which leads me to the Public Service Announcement portion of this post: if going to the Islas, you MUST bring the thickest water-safe shoes in the known universe, as the islands were formed from a coral reef a few thousand years ago and Mother Nature hasn´t gotten around to smoothing things out just yet. Beautiful, yet ouchy. And that´s not even accounting for the fact that the most adorable tiny sea urchins crowd the rocky part before you get in the water. I also saw what I thought was a sea snake, but it turned out to be a harmless (but intriguing) Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber.

The main event, beach wise, was next: Playa Blanca is a breathtakingly beautiful beach on the island of Barú. The water is a clear, glassy turquoise, and warm as a bath. It rained in the afternoon, so I had the strange experience of swimming under a dark sky, with the water I was swimming in at least 30 degrees warmer than the water that was falling on me. It was great.

Tommorow, the second and final tour experience: some crazy mud volcano an hour away from Cartagena. Supposedly, you can swim in that, too, but I don´t think it´s quite the same.

Colombia: We PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE not to hurt you, okay?

Hello from Cartagena, which is a really storybook-beautiful old city on the Carribean coast.

Much against the wishes of the US State Department and my family, I´m spending a week in Colombia. I´ve flown here from the sprawling, happy chaos of Quito, and it´s really kind of heartbreaking how little fuss one ought to make about most of Colombia in comparison to the kind of fuss most folks have been making. Me definitely included, I confess: just as much as anyone else, I´ve absorbed a lot of the stereotypes over the years.

Flying into Bogotà, I had a bit of a paradigm shift. Looking down from above, the areas around the main city look as if drawn with a ruler--all tidy little boxes and neat lines of streets. The airport is clean, safe, and busy, with well organized shuttles between the different terminals. Flying on Avianca, one of Colombia´s main airlines, I got a free newspaper to go with my juice box.

This country feels its own reputation more deeply than I imagined, and is working desperately to change it in a way that strikes me as both touching and sad. The national tourist comission has developed a new slogan: ¨Colombia--the only risk is not wanting to leave.¨ (I'm guessing that ¨Colombia: Bombing Airplanes is SO twenty years ago¨didn´t go over quite as well.) And, according to my newspaper, the national government just spent a crapload of money to install giant fiberglass hearts in DC and New York--inscribed with positive statements and new statistics about Colombia´s increased security.

Hope it works, because what I´ve seen so far makes Cartagena, at least, a very attractive place for travelers. The city dates back from the 1500s, and much of it is exceptionally well-preserved given the heat, humidity, and frequent pirate attacks. (The last issue, for the record, isn´t a threat anymore.) Buildings in the main city are beautifully, brightly painted, and there´s a leafy, green plaza every few blocks or so to help walkers escape the heat. The air is sweet with baking bread from dozens of panaderías, and a light wind cuts the humidity a little. Before coming here, I heard that Cartagena was swarming with moneychangers and sketchy folks trying to sell junk to the increasing number of tourists: haven´t experienced anything but the mildest attempts so far. Streets here are narrow and rather lightly travelled: most everybody seems to walk, sometimes straight down the street in the road, which is more or less safe since the vehicular traffic is so slow. Partially, I think, because ¨vehicular traffic¨in the historic center includes dozens of horse-and-buggy contraptions for tourists: yesterday, I almost got stuck between a horse and buggy on one side and a mobile arepa (corn pancake) stand on the other.

There are handfuls of travelers here and there, but not many: I stayed last night dead-set in the city center and will transfer tonight to a more tourist-oriented part of town. I´m hoping to find a good group tour of the Islas de Rosario ( a marine national park outside of Cartagena), and also to check out a bit more of the city.

Better sign off now if I want to get lunch: food here has been a challenge, mostly because it´s just too damn hot to eat. The juices, though, are delicious: although I have no idea what it looks like before you stick it in a blender, lulo is my new favorite fruit.

Interlude: Donuts

This one goes out to my good friend Matt, a donut afficianado who has also enjoyed travel in South America. However, it seems that he went to the wrong country. I don´t recall him mentioning that Peru was especially fond of donuts. However....

Ecuador tiene la donut para ti.

And the airports of Columbia have not one, but TWO donut chains to choose from!

Quito: It´s Not So Bad After All

I´m a changed woman. Finally had a day in Quito which was actually, my gosh, a lot of fun.

The excitement began on the bus ride back from Mindo, which was initially looking rather unpleasant, as the entire bus was crammed with people well before I got on. I wasn´t fancying the idea of standing on a bus for 2 1/2 hours, but got lucky. An Ecuadorian noticed my bag tag (I still have the Project 2006 tag with the curb cut on my travel backpack): turned out, he was an occupational therapist in Quito, and one of the main people who´s trying to organize OTs in all of Ecuador to standardize practices and distribute materials. Who knew enough about the ways of the Bus that he talked us both into the mini-seat behind the drivers, so we could converse about assistive technology without slamming into the windows and falling over during sudden stops. Membership has its priviledges! Bridgett, I got his contact info: he knows we may not be able to do this, but if we´d like to, he can rally most OTs in Pichincha province for a day of training: from there, he thinks they can spread the word to other facilities and provinces.

Once I arrived in Quito, I spent a nice afternoon in La Mariscal, where I found a fabulous little cafe which serves iced mochas the way iced mochas are meant to be served: you take your espresso, you add your chocolate syrup, and then you drop a whole bunch of ice cream into the glass. Oh, yeah.

But the true secret to a pleasant day in Quito involves leaving La Mariscal: after lounging awhile in the cafe with Spanish magazines, I had a few hours to kill before sunset, so I finally went to the Panecillo. Also called the Virgen de Quito, this landmark is an enormous stone angel at the top of the city. I went for the view, but stayed for the...kite flying! It was awesome: every weekend, I guess, dozens of Quiteño families schlepp their kids up to the Panecillo, where there´s also a mini amusement park/carousel, and on windy days, people sell kites for a buck each. End result: locals running around the hill above the city, throwing crappy kites into the air and struggling to keep them aloft. Kites get tangled, people bump into each other, and everyone is laughing and yelling advice.

After the kites, there´s still fun to be had. For a buck, you can go inside the Virgen´s head and climb to the top, where the views are even better. There´s also volleyball to be watched, terrible souvenirs to be purchased, and other travellers to meet--especially if you find yourself at the top of the tallest hill in metropolitan Quito half an hour after the last bus rolls back down the hill. Had the good fortune to start chatting with two expatriates (one from England, one from Peru) and another traveler from Germany: we were able to get a truck ride down for thirty cents each, and then I joined them for dinner. Every now and again, it´s nice to speak English for hours at a time, and they were great company. Introduced me to the phenomenon of couch surfing, which is actually a very highly organized form of travel in some parts of South America: there´s an internet group that you join, and it allows you to connect with locals who are interested in hosting travelers in their homes. Don´t think I´ll be doing that (you can breathe now, Mom...), but it seems like a nice option for people who are more extroverted than I am.

Alas, I didn´t get back to the hostel until almost midnight, which means I am now attempting to function in Cartagena on three hours of sleep. Taking it easy today, mostly checking email and scoping out future hostels (the one I´m at gets way too much street noise): we´ll see what adventures await once I´m rested!

Mindo: It´s Very Coat out Here

Hello from Mindo. Hey, that rhymes. Actually, almost everything in Spanish seems to rhyme with ¨Mindo¨; as one of my inexplicable pet peeves is accidentally saying things that rhyme, it pisses me off that a) Mindo is beautiful b) many people ask me what I think of Mindo and c) the Spanish word for beautiful that comes to my mind first is ¨lindo¨.

It really is quite pretty here, though; Mindo´s located in the cloud forest, a couple hours away from Quito but in all other aspects a completely different world. For one thing, it´s a lot warmer: my friend Andrea was confused last year when someone told her that Mindo was very ¨coat¨(¨abrigo¨), which seems to mean that being here is warm, like wearing a coat. Everything here is slow and laid-back, locals reclining on plastic chairs outside their houses and watching it all pass by.

Alas, there´s not as much going on here as the locals might like, because the one-two punch of swine flu and economic crisis has knocked out a lot of tourism. I had my hostal entirely to myself the first night, which was a little disconcerting as it was way off the main road in the middle of the nowhere. El Descanso is a beautiful, beautiful place, but I switched out the next day. I´m now in a place whose name I can neither spell nor pronounce (Kascafesu?), a fairly new addition to the Mindo scene custom- built for an American ex-Peace Corps volunteer and the man she married in Ecuador. They seem to have a thing for stonework: it´s kind of like living inside a pizza oven. But very comfortable, and folks are quite friendly: I´d recommend it.

It´s been an entertaining couple of days. I went tubing on Friday with a couple Americans. It shattered all my illusions of calmly floating, Huck-Finn style, down a peaceful little meandering stream: basically, you´re riding the rapids on a raft made of inner tubes tied loosely to each other. Highlight of the trip was definitely when one of the tubes simply popped and deflated against a rock; sometimes, it´s best to NOT understand it when one guide says in Spanish that the raft´s a piece of crap. They did assure us, however, that they haven´t lost a tourist yet, so I had that in my favor.

The night brought Mindo´s main event--the Concerta De Ranas (frog concert)! A naturalist opened a hostería/frog sanctuary a little outside of town, and now puts on a little tour and show every night but Monday. I got there a little early and spent a good long while wondering what to expect--were the frogs, in that moment, putting on little tuxedos? Actually tuning the world´s smallest violin? As it turns out, the naturalist pulls a hapless volunteer/translator from the audience, has his lackies pass out tiny cups of wine, and delivers a long speech about the importance of frog conservation, before playing a recording of various frog sounds, to which the actual frogs respond. He then knows where they are, and leads everyone on a walk around the grounds, pointing out all the different animals he can find with his flashlight and recorder.

It was pretty damn cool: cockroaches larger than your hand, bioluminescent bacteria, adult frogs not much bigger than a human fingernail. The forest is an incredible system, and it´s amazing how much life you find if someone tells you where to look.

Today, I visited one of several mariposarios (butterfly gardens), which was equally fabulous. My favorites are the blue morphos--huge, clumsy things that flop around as if drugged by their own weight. On the outside, they´re a dull brown, with spots to trick predators into thinking they´re owl eyes--when the wings open, though, there´s often a shocking flash of bright blue. It was good fun spending an hour or so watching them.

And then, onwards and upwards to the cascada (waterfall). Was a bit nervous when I discovered that the path to the waterfull started with a tarabita, or cable car: basically, you pay a guy a buck, stick yourself in a cage, and he pushes the cage over a rope across the river, because bridges are for sissies when you hike in Ecuador. Decided to go back the non-terebita way. The cascada, as it turns out, was yet another pay point/adventure destination: just for you, mom, I declined the opportunity to first zipline through the forest, then toboggan into the river. Settled for a nice, easy walk instead: it was quite pleasant.

Got back in time to pick up my laundry: now, all that´s left to do is enjoy a nice dinner (I now know that ¨tilapia¨is an entire, fried fish with eye sockets and tail, so I think it´s all downhill from lunchtime!) and get my last night of non-city sleep: tomorrow, off to Quito and then to Cartagena!