On Monday, I did another touristy day-trip, this time to Volcan de Totumo: a tiny volcano filled with mud that people go dunk themselves in, because "it's good for the skin," but also, I think deep down we're all looking for a good excuse to roll around in mud like giddy little piglets.
I didn't really care about having my own picture taken or risking my camera falling into the mud pit, so I didn't get any photos of it. But -- here are some from Google Images! I can verify that this is exactly where I went and what it looked like.
While I was waiting in line on the stairs up to the mud pit, I started cleaning the gunk from under my fingernails (my fingernails are forever unclean here for some reason), and then I remembered I was going to be submersed in a pit of mud momentarily. So I decided to wait to clean out the gunk.
A few things about the mud:
1) It is impossible to sink -- for some science-y reason, everybody floats. It actually made it quite difficult for people to stay upright if they weren't holding onto the sides of the pit, because our legs kept wanting to float up. Considering how many people were in the pit at a time (about 10-15), this made for some hilariously awkward moments.
2) You know how little pools will form on sandy beaches and it'll form a mud that is kind of silky and it is still viscous but it slips between your fingers quickly? That's exactly how this mud felt.
In the mud, I hung out with a couple women who had the sweetest, most life-affirming energy. I got the impression they were best friends for many years and that they did this kind of adventurous thing together fairly frequently.
When I got out of the mud, I headed down to the buckets of water that were to be used to rinse us off. Usually, there is a lagoon nearby, but it was all dried up, so there were just three big buckets of water and three women scooping the water out and rinsing us off. They were very thorough; they'd pull and tug at our swimsuits and shake them while they poured water down mens' swim trunks, and down the women's bikini tops and bottoms, which at first was a bit startling -- I was wearing a strapless bikini top which was already starting to slide down because of all the mud making it heavy and slippery -- but after a few seconds, I just embraced it. Bring on the nip slips, who's gonna care?
All the mud washed off me, I headed up some steps back to the canopy where all our stuff was, and I must have looked like I was worried I was going to slip or something, because the woman who had rinsed me off and was following behind me grabbed my bikini bottom and hoisted me up to provide some support (like, if she'd pulled harder it would have been a wedgie, but thankfully she did not) while I climbed the remaining few steps, and it made me crack up. It was one of those "what just happened?" moments and I loved it.
Speaking of people feeling compelled to help me: the tour guide would do her announcements in Spanish, and then come up to my after and explain it again in English for me to make sure I knew what was going on. And as much as I wish i could have said, "thank you so much, but I actually understood most of what you said in Spanish," I could not. I was picking up very little of what she was saying in Spanish. So I really appreciated that she did that for me. However, I'm a little annoyed with my lack of real-life Spanish progress (I'm 30% fluent on Duolingo but that percentage rating holds very little significance for me at this point)
I am trying to be patient with this language stuff, and I'm willing to work hard at it -- just feels like progress is slow and I would benefit so much from a higher level of fluency. I exchanged Instragram info with someone on the Volcan de Totumo day trip (Liz Pineda), and she saw that my last name was Martinez and said, "wait... you're latina and you don't speak Spanish?" Ugh... yes. That's right. BUT I'M WORKING ON IT!
Anyway, after the mud, we went to have lunch at Playa Boquilla, which was GORGEOUS. See for yourself:
Lunch was very similar to the one we had at Playa Blanca, but this time a little soup was included as an appetizer.
After lunch, I went out the water to just sit and stare at the natural beauty of it all, and that's where I met Liz. Liz is from Washington, DC, and she was there with a coworker, but usually she travels by herself. We talked about traveling alone, and how great it is (although she was speaking from far more experience than I), and she was thrilled for me when she heard about the Bonderman and that I got to be traveling for 8 whole months. She manages to do it by saving both money and paid leave every year and then treating herself to a 3-4 week international vacation. Her goal is to visit half the countries in the world, and I think she may actually get there.
When Liz went to go grab a chair to bring out on the sand, I decided to get in the water. I know I said that at Playa Blanca it felt weird to swim by myself, but here it felt fantastic. The water was perfect and warm and soothing and I completely lost track of time -- when someone whistled for us to get out and head back to the van, I realized I had forgotten we were on a day trip tour thing and we couldn't just stay here all day..... bummer.
So that was Volcan de Totumo!! Not sure how to end this blog. K bye!