Bucket List / Experience Goals
Take A Dip In A Mud Volcano
Ticked off
Climb a little volcano near Cartagena, lower yourself into its crater and float, weightless, in warm grey mud.
The adventure
From the outside, El Totumo looks like a giant anthill: a cone of dried mud rising beside a lagoon, with a rickety wooden staircase up its side. At the top is a crater barely bigger than a hot tub, filled with thick, warm, silky mud. You climb down a ladder, lean back, and discover you can't sink. The mud is so dense that it simply holds you up, arms and legs bobbing on the surface.
Strangers drift into you, everyone laughing at how ridiculous it feels. Local masseurs work their way around the crater offering a quick massage, and photographers on the rim snap your grey, glistening face. When you finally clamber out, coated from head to toe, you walk down to the lagoon where local women wash you off with buckets of water, bathing suit and all.
Why it’s epic
- A mud crater so dense you float upright without effort.
- The lagoon wash-down afterwards, done by women from the local village.
- Easy to combine with Cartagena's walled old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Many day trips add a beach lunch on the Caribbean coast.
What it is
El Totumo is a mud volcano near Cartagena where you float in warm mud.
How to do it
Day trips run from Cartagena.
Top tip
Tip the people who help you wash off.
Need to know
- El Totumo is about an hour's drive from Cartagena, and organised day trips include transport.
- Bring small cash for the masseurs, photographers and helpers who wash you off; tipping is expected.
- Wear an old swimsuit and leave jewellery behind, as things lost in the mud are rarely found.
Plan this trip
- Rough cost
- Under £750 per person, including flights from the UK
- Time needed
- Half a day
- Best time to go
- All year
- Fly into
- CTG airport
Entry is cheap; the main costs are the day trip from Cartagena and tips for the helpers.
Do it yourself
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How I ticked it off
You may ask, why!? Well, as somebody who has spent 3-4 years doing a lot of obstacle racing from the age of 30, which involves a LOT of mud, this is an almost obvious addition.
A mud volcano or mud dome is a kind of volcano that is made by liquids and gases from the earth. There are many different ways that mud volcanoes can be made. Temperatures in a mud volcano are much cooler than that of a regular volcano. Most of the gases given off by mud volcanoes are methane. Other gases given off include carbon dioxide and methane. They usually spit out liquids with solids in the liquids
Azerbaijan has the largest number of mud volcanoes in the world. With a total of least 400, Azerbaijan has one-third of the world’s mud volcanoes. 200 of these are located within a range of a thousand kilometres area, and some have created temporary and permanent islands and submarine banks. The two biggest mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan are Turaghai and Boyuk Khanizadagh. However, the world’s largest mud volcano is the Sidoarjo Mudflow, located in Lusi, Indonesia, which has a height of 2,300 feet and a width of 6 miles. This mud volcano has been spewing mud since May 2006, when it killed 14 people and displaced 25,000 in four square mile countryside. Scientists project the Sidoarjo Mudflow will continue for 25 years, and believe it may have been triggered by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake 280 kilometres away, which was recorded two days before the mud volcano began.Other large and notable mud volcanoes include El Totumo in Colombia, with a height of 50 metres, and the Chandragup mud volcano in Pakistan, with a 450 foot wide crater. Trinidad and Tobago, Turtle Islands in Philippines, California, and Eastern Venezuela are other countries or regions with mud volcanoes.
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