Early in the day, a large group of us decided to visit one of the area’s main attractions: the clay baths of Volcan del Totumo.

After a 50 minute bus ride north of the city, we arrived at a what looked like a miniature volcano (or, more accurately, a giant version of one of those paper mache volcanoes from an elementary school science fair). The mini-mountain steeply rose 50 feet up, and had staircases built up the sides. The crater, instead of lava, was filled with stinky, thick, gray mud. One by one, we lowered ourselves in, and were enveloped by the muck.

The sensation was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Not exactly pleasant, but definitely not unpleasant. We stuck around, tossing mud and dunking eachother for a while. A Columbian travel show crew showed up and filmed a segment in the crater. They made us be quiet while they filmed, but then got payback by completely dunking the host under at the end.

When it was time to go, we walked down to the lake at the bottom of the volcano and got washed up. The whole experience left me surprisingly invigorated. I don’t know who discovered the mud volcano or who the first person to hop in there might have been, but someone is now making good money by covering people in filth and letting them wash up. Genius.

Back in Cartagena, the Independence Week festivities continued. This time, it was the Gay Pride Parade, which went right by our hostel. Much of our crew had decided to leave Cartagena the next day (and not all of us are headed the same way) and so a final night of celebration was in order. We went down to the Old Town plaza and mingled with the locals, we played music on the roof of the hostel, and stayed up to watch the sunrise.