If you find yourself in Cartagena, chances are that you’ll come across posters advertising the Totumo Mud Volcano. It’s sort of a rite of passage in Cartagena – if you come here, you’ll visit the volcano. So obviously, I signed up for a tour, not sure if it would be fun to take a mud bath with a bunch of strangers or not.. But what could I do? The Cartagena rite of passage, you know?
And so I found myself in a minivan with 16 strangers on a sunny Sunday afternoon, ready to join the thousands before me, taking a mud bath in a volcano. Once you get there though, you quickly realize that this isn’t really a volcano filled with mud, it’s more like an upside down cone filled with mud.
What to Know Before Visiting Totumo Mud Volcano
There were other things that nobody told me before I headed to the Totumo mud volcano, things I would have been glad to know before I go, which is why I’m going to share six of them with you right here:
1. You’ll get up close and personal with strangers
The Totumo mud volcano is actually closer to a puddle of mud than anything else, but picture a really really deep one, maybe even bottomless. If you take a tour to Totumo, like most people do, because it’s the cheapest and easiest way from Cartagena, you and 16 fellow mud enthusiasts will change into their swimsuits and head up the ‘volcano’. One by one, you’ll descend into the mud, slowly going down a ladder from the top, because the mud is much lower than shown in the pretty advertising posters around town. The mud used to reach up to the top of the ‘volcano’, and I’m not sure where it all went but you have to descend a good 20-16 feet (6-8 meters) now to get into the creamy, smelly mud. Considering that there are several guys selling bottles of this good ol’ mud at the bottom of the volcano, they might have sold all the mud that used to fill up the volcano, but who knows. Anyway, once you’re in the mud, be prepared to be groped by some Colombian dudes who are spending all day waiting inside this mud hole, eager to massage white people for a small fee (COP4,000).
One by one, the rest of your group will join you, or maybe you are one of the lucky ones last in line, looking down skeptically on everyone floating in the mud, wondering if you really want to get in there. But as the mud hole fills up, you’ll quickly befriend everybody else because you all realize what a ridiculous situation you are in, and the fuller it gets, the closer you’ll get to everyone. I felt quite a few hairy legs, boobs, feet and other body parts while I was floating around, thinking to myself how weird it was that I wasn’t sinking.
Pro Tip: Don’t be one of the fools who dip their entire head into the mud – there’s nothing to clean the mud off your eyes, and your hands are muddy, too!
2. You might not make it out alive
Once you decide that you’ve had enough, you will try to make your way out of the mud, which now that the mud hole is quite deep means relying on a rickety old wooden ladder, which is extremely slippery, thanks to all the mud monsters who’ve made their way out of there before you. So hold onto the rails for your dear life – literally! The story of how you conquered a mud volcano is a good one, but you have to make it out alive to live to tell it.
When people wonder if it is safe to travel in Colombia, I usually tell them that my visit to Totumo mud volcano was one of the scariest moments of my trip to Colombia.
3. Prepare to be studied and stared at
One thing that was interesting was that during my visit, several tour buses pulled up. At first I thought: wow, it’ll take forever for them all to take a mud bath, because the hole doesn’t fit a 48 people bus load, and a minivan load of 17 already takes a while to get in. But then I realized that they don’t come to take a mud bath. Instead, the Latinos walk up to the rim, stare at the gringos (including you!), snap your picture, and then walk down again after pointing at you and chatting about you with their fellow observers. They’re probably thinking: Why the hell do these gringos pay so much money to get into this stinky puddle, ruin their swimsuits in mud and get their hair all muddy? It feels particularly humiliating when you’re the one who is in the process of emerging from the mud, looking like a mud monster, and have a guy grope you to get some of the mud off you with his hands before you make your way down to the cleaning area… Yes, cleaning area.
4. Lots of groping!
Even though there is a huge lake next to the Totumo mud volcano, you can’t just jump in and wash the mud off – it is too shallow, and so the business-savvy Colombians who live around here set up a few giant jars near the lake which some guys keep filling with bucket loads of green water that they get out of the lake.
When you arrive there, a lady will grab you and start washing the mud off you with the help of a little bowl, in which she puts the green lake water from the big jar. These ladies are also not afraid to touch your private parts, and I’m sure the lady who washed me enjoyed my boobs, that’s how intensely she was rubbing them. They’re also not afraid to just take your swimsuit off if they feel there’s a lot of mud in there – my friend found herself without her bikini top within a couple of minutes of getting to the cleaning area, while another lady tried to get into her pants pull down her pants. That’s the moment when you get really close with all of your new mud friends – you’ll see much more of them than you expected.
5. You’ll hand out tips right and left
Once you’re released, you go back to your belongings which are stored in a little storage room while you frolic in the mud, and suddenly, everyone who has helped you with something, appears and wants to be tipped. The guy who held your camera? $1. The lady who washed you? $1. The kid who watched your shoes? $1. The guy who massaged you? $1 (amazingly cheap massage, btw!). It was incredible how everyone who did something for you finds you again afterwards and makes sure he or she gets paid. In all the tipping mania I even tipped a kid who didn’t do anything other than holding his hand open! ‘But he didn’t do anything for us‘, my friend pointed out. ‘Oh.. Well he just made 50 cents by simply holding his hand open.‘
6. Mmmmh that smell…
When you’re finally back in the van, you’ll be able to enjoy the sulfur smell for another hour (at least, depending on traffic in Cartagena) because you think they cleaned you, but as a matter of fact you’ll still find mud in the most random body parts for days (if you’re one of the lucky ones whose accommodation in Cartagena has hot water: this is when you’ll truly appreciate it!)
In total, you’ll spend more time in the van than in the mud, by the way. Our van showed up half an hour late and then picked up other mud-hungry tourists around town for another hour (!) before we were finally on the way. The ride takes about an hour once you leave the city and an hour back. You’ll spend about an hour at the Totumo mud volcano, including cleaning, changing and a quick beer to get rid of the taste of mud in your mouth. There are two tours to the volcano every day; one leaves in the morning, and one leaves in the afternoon.
How Much Does Totumo Cost:
- Tour to the volcano: COP45,000 (US$13.82)
- Tip for guy who takes your pictures: COP4,000 (US$1.28)
- Tip for woman who washes you: COP4,000 (US$1.28)
- Tip for the guy who massages you: COP4,000 (US$1.28)
- Tip for the kid who cleans your shoes: COP1,000-2,000 (US$0.37-0.64)
- Beer (optional): COP3,000 (US$0.92)
- Uniqueness of the experience: priceless.
*Exchange rate 2016
Practical Information to Visit Totumo Mud Volcano
Is there another way to get to the Totumo mud volcano?
Yes, you can take a cab to the volcano if you don’t like crowds. If you time it right (early afternoon would be best, I think, before the arrival of the afternoon group), you’ll most likely have the volcano all to yourself. It’s worth it if you are a group of four people; expect to pay at least COP200,000 for the cab, including return to Cartagena and the driver waiting for you while you splash around in the mud.
Are there different tour companies offering this tour?
At the moment, there’s only one tour company who runs this tour if you book it in Cartagena: Ruta ecologica. You can book the trip from most hotels and hostels and your offices around town. Pickup is usually where you book it. The price (COP45,000/ around US$14) includes transportation and a snack of fresh watermelon after the mud bath. The company has a little area with changing rooms, toilets and showers (don’t expect more than a trickle) right next to the volcano, complete with lockers where you can lock up your valuables. GetYourGuide started to offer a few mud volcano tours, check them out here:
Can you trust a random guide with your camera / phone?
This was my biggest concern, but their system works. Our group’s camera guy had thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment around his neck and in his fanny pack – all our phones, goPros, dSLRs and regular cameras. He’s going to snap 10 – 15 pictures of you. I took a few extra ones on my camera before we left. You have no chance but handing over your camera, by the way, if you want to eternalize the picture of your mud-covered self.
What to bring / what not to bring
Old bikini
Bring an old bikini – unless you have the chance to wash it the same day. The mud turned out to be pretty persistent and I’m glad I wasn’t wearing my best swimsuit.
Water & Sunscreen
The volcano itself doesn’t offer any shade, so make sure you bring sunscreen and water to stay hydrated. There are some kiosks and small roadside restaurants around the volcano where you can buy snacks and soft drinks or beers after the experience.
Money
Bring enough cash (and small change) to cover all your tips, but I wouldn’t bring too much cash or any valuables that you don’t need (credit cards, jewelry, etc).
PIN IT!
I made it to Colombia! I can’t believe that after all these years, I’m finally here. To give you a bit more background: when I (we) started traveling in 2010, I started in the U.S. and made my way south through Mexico and Central America. The goal was to go all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, taking a catamaran from Panama to Colombia via the 
As you can see, I was jumping with joy this week when I finally arrived at the beach! I admit, it’s not my best jumping photo, but I tried 🙂 It was probably right then when I was jumping around, frolicking in the sand when my bungalow in Palomino was broken into, in bright daylight. Luckily I didn’t lose much, but I am still shaken up by the experience of returning to all my belongings strewn across the floor of my bungalow, thinking how different this could have ended (we assume the burglar was interrupt and had to flee). I will talk more about it in my 
After checking out some of Colombia’s fabulous 
In my head, Cartagena was a picture-perfect port town filled with Spanish Colonial architecture, where sailors would arrive from their journeys around the Caribbean and beyond. They were spending their nights dancing in salsa bars with long-haired Colombian beauties while sipping ice cold mojitos.
When I arrived in Cartagena, it turned out that my romantic notions of Cartagena weren’t even that far off from what the city is in 2016. At the old-fashioned Cafe Havana (not a café, but a salsa bar), tanned, muscular North Americans (obviously sailors) were rubbing shoulders with Colombians, Argentines and Chileans (I was surprised by how many visitors of those two nations I kept meeting throughout Colombia), and the Cuban live band was so electrifying that it was hard not to move your feet.
That’s how I had always thought I’d arrive in Cartagena, on a catamaran from Panama, which is how almost all Latin America backpackers get from Central America to South America due to the almost impossible to cross 
Then somehow, it ended up taking me five more years to finally touch down in Colombia. While I didn’t arrive by boat, Cartagena was still my very first stop in Colombia, and I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to this fascinating country, where even after two months of traversing it from the Caribbean to the coffee region and all the way down to the Amazon, I still felt like I only scratched the surface.
Watching colorful little houses, one after another, glide by out my window as the taxi brought us to our guesthouse, I thought to myself: this could be Costa Rica. Or Nicaragua. Or Panama. The resemblance of Panama grew even stronger when we, after putting down our bags, made our way into town and finally walked through the majestic clock tower in the centuries-old stone walls that still surround Cartagena’s Old Town.
Once inside the Old City, we started wandering aimlessly and got lost in the maze of colorful streets almost instantly. Initially, I felt very much reminded of Panama City’s old town, 
Then there are the well-preserved wooden balconies that are overflowing with Bougainvillea and other exotic flowers. And the echoing of the hooves of the horses that draw carriages with selfie-stick toting tourists through the narrow streets.
Cartagena itself doesn’t have many tourist landmarks to offer, but for me the city itself was the main attraction: I didn’t need museums or fancy sights. Every day I would meander through the streets, always finding new ones to explore with even prettier doors and balconies than the one before. I’d marvel at the intricate door handles – shaped like fish, lizards, dogs, hands, lions… (and photograph about fifty different ones!), count the shades of yellow I’d see on the houses, sit in the leafy plazas with an iced coffee in my hand, people watching and just taking in Colombian life.
I’d walk by the fruit vendors trying to decide which fruit I’d go for that day: Watermelon? Pineapple? Papaya? Or a Colombian fruit I’ve never tried before?
I loved my first few days in Cartagena so much that I ended up returning and instead of spending only a couple of more days there, extending my stay several times. ‘Pues… Voy a quedarme otra noche’, I would tell the receptionist every morning when I came down for breakfast, debating which coffee shop I’d make my office for a few hours.
Not having the pressure of ticking off a number of sights made my time in Cartagena so relaxing that I even found myself developing daily rituals, like a stop at the 
I’d wander different parts of the city walls, so thick that there’s room for a broad pathway that runs along the top, which are the best preserved city walls in all of the Americas. You can actually walk the entire length of the wall (4 kilometers/2.5 miles), which reaches an impressive height of 26 feet (8 meters) and still has several baluartes (ramparts) and cannons which were used by the Spaniards to defend the city from attack.
The views from the walls are stunning, especially over the ocean, and make sure to watch the sunset from up here at least once. If you don’t want to pay for overpriced drinks at Café Del Mar, get a cold $1 beer from one of the vendors that bring coolers filled with soda and beer cans up here every day.
The main difference to the picture-perfect Old Town? There’s street art everywhere. Most doors and walls are covered in murals, paintings, and meaningful messages, so it makes sense that this is the part of town where a free street art tour is offered.
This street art lover happily traipsed around the neighborhood one sweltering hot morning, following the young French tour guide who showed us the best murals and graffiti works, while telling us about the message of some of the political pieces and giving us more information on the artists. If you are into street art, I highly recommend taking this tour.
But also for non-street art enthusiasts, Getsemani is well worth a visit with plenty of lovely cafes and some of the best-rated restaurants in Cartagena. It is poorer than Cartagena’s historic center, and you can feel that tourists only started coming here recently.
Most restaurants are new, and there are a number of boutique hotels in the freshly renovated buildings that aren’t more than a couple of years old.
One of my most memorable evenings in Cartagena was having drinks on a tiny balcony at Bar Solar – the balcony just big enough to fit two chairs and a tiny table – overlooking Plaza de la Trinidad, the main square of the neighborhood. This little square facing a Spanish-colonial church is usually filled with old men gossiping and little boys kicking a football.
We weren’t lucky enough to have another encounter with Mr Sloth, but on subsequent stops in the park we saw monkeys, red squirrels and giant iguanas.
If you are going for the best sunset views I suggest you walk all the way to the end of the Bocagrande peninsula, near the Hilton Hotel. There are also a couple of little restaurants where you can enjoy some seafood and cold drinks (Bar La Sirena, Brisas del Caribe and El Muelle).
The trip to Playa Blanca I mentioned above, 45 minutes west of Cartagena, was our first attempt to get to a beach outside of Cartagena. I had seen photos of it, and the turquoise water and powdery white sand was all it took to make me book a trip to the beach – it looked so much more appealing than Cartagena’s city beaches.
Sadly, we happened to pick a day that was particularly stormy – stormy enough to cause a boat to flip over in a wave as it approached the beach – and the water got up much higher on the sand than it usually does.
It was still a nice day, but I was glad we had decided to go only for a day trip instead of an overnight trip, because the wooden ramshackle thatched roof huts on the beach didn’t look particularly inviting to stay in (a girl who had spent the night in one of them told me later that it was as hot as a sauna and that the mosquitoes were nearly unbearable).
The other day trip from Cartagena I took was to take a bath in a mud volcano, which turned out to be a pretty.. um, interesting, trip. I detailed the experience this article: 
Looking back at my entire trip, I have to say that Cartagena was not only the perfect introduction to Colombia, but it also ended up being my favorite city in the country.
By boat: The catamarans and boats sailing between Panama and Colombia were completely unregulated for years. However, recently there has been an effort to make the crossing more regulated, and the boats listed on 
I checked out several of the popular hostels but didn’t love any (Mamallena, Media Luna – too loud, too cramped) but I liked 
The amazing popsicles and ice creams at La Paleteria (
For vegetarian food: Los Girasoles (at the corner of Carrera 9 and Calle 37) has a super cheap set lunch menu (COP8,000)
Ah, Villa de Leyva! It was love at first sight between this charming little village with its cobble-stone streets and bright white houses and me. With the exception of 
For more Colombia photos, check out 
When we started to plan our trip through 
I later learned that the original Death Road had been replaced by a new, safer (asphalted!) road several years ago and was mainly used by thrill-seeking cyclists these days. Car traffic was apparently minimal – so the deal was sealed. The thought of cycling Bolivia’s Death Road didn’t seem as terrifying anymore now that I knew that I couldn’t collide with a truck or bus. Of course I could still drop off a cliff, since most of the road doesn’t have any guard rails, but I figured with some caution I would be fine. When the road was still in heavy use, the main reason for accidents was that in many spots it was too narrow for two vehicles to pass each other at the same time, causing the bus or truck on the cliff side to fall off.
We were fitted into our gear – a jacket with elbow pads, pants with knee pads, gloves, and a full-face helmet, tested our mountain bikes (the brakes worked great, which was excellent news!) and off we went. For the first 20 kilometers we didn’t cycle on the actual Death Road, but on the new asphalt road to Coroico, to get used to the bikes. This part should have been an easy ride, but it was so foggy that you could barely see anything. I prayed that the fog would lift by the time we’d reach the Death Road. What if we weren’t even able to see the steep drop?
The weather gods didn’t seem to be on our side that day – as if the fog was not enough, it started to rain. After riding through the fog and rain for an hour and getting close to freezing to death before even reaching the Death Road, we stopped for a snack in a little village while the bikes were loaded up on the van. The next 8 kilometers were uphill, and since it was pouring now, we got to ride in the van for a few minutes.
Then we arrived at the original Death Road. The fog had lifted, and we could see the road snake along the mountainside for miles, with imposing cliffs on the left side of the road. I started to feel a little uneasy, especially when our guide told us that we’d be riding on the left – the cliff – side of the road! This is the only road in Bolivia with left-hand traffic, the reason for this being that drivers who ride on the left see the cliff (since the steering wheel is still on the left side), and drivers who come up the road see how close they’re to the mountainside.
Luckily the rain had stopped, and so we started the ride in good spirits. Every time I dared to look down to my left, it resulted in my heart racing and sweaty palms. The drop was unbelievably steep, and you couldn’t see the bottom.
We stopped several times to take photos – most of the time our guides took photos of all of us, since we were too busy holding on to the brakes and our camera gear was in the van that was following slowly behind us. After cycling for a while we were even relaxed enough to pose for some goofy photos at the edge.
Our group of ten had two guides, and Jess and I were riding slower in the back with the Bolivian couple, and while one guide was riding with the daredevils of the group, the other guide was always in the back with us. The other six were much more daring than we were and were always way ahead of us – whenever you could see the road ahead of us on a less winding part, they were nowhere to be seen.
After about two thirds of the way, we rode on a flat part for a while – the first time all day that we had to use our pedals! Most of the time we just sat on the bike and hit the brakes hard, trying not to go over the edge. Because there are so many curves on the way, the cars that come up the road usually honk before turning around a corner. At some point, a car turned around the corner so suddenly that the sound of honk took me by such surprise that I hit the brakes too hard – and I flew over the handlebars. Luckily I didn’t go over the edge and was able to catch the bike before it went over, making this an incident without a tragic outcome (except for me being terribly shaken up with visions of me on a rock at the bottom of the mountain).
Not long after that, I heard a loud crash behind me and when I turned around, I saw Jess on the ground, her bike upside down in the slope next to her. It turned out that she had also been lucky and the accident looked much worse than it was – a minute later she was back in the saddle and raced towards the end, having become much more comfortable than me on the bike.
A few minutes later, we arrived at the main road – we had survived the Death Road! Not quite accident-free, but we lived.
***