Day 52 - Baby, Can I Hold You

We woke up content enough, but for some reason grouchy. We had a crappy breakfast at a nearby restaurant which only bolstered the blah. We packed up and headed for the bus terminal in Santa Marta. The plan was to find our way to the El Tortumo mud volcano just outside Cartagena. Not a completely simple task, but Ulrich made it happen for us. Two buses and two hours later we were dropped off, roadside, with a 1km walk in the glaring hot sun to the volcano. We had a feast of fried fish, patacone, coconut rice, french fries and salad before climbing up the rickety wooden stairs to dip ourselves into the mud. We enjoyed a body rub from the men at the top and smiled for our cameraman who took care of our camera for us while we were in the bath. Afterwards we rinsed off in the cienaga as the sunlight glowed golden from the horizon behind us. It was beautiful and we were happy to be there. Ulrich enjoyed another plate of fish and then we hired moto-taxis to take us to the nearest gas station where we flagged a bus to Cartagena.

My song for today is Baby, Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman. I grew up idolizing Tracy Chapman and her 1988 self-titled debut album was one of my first cassette tapes. Her music has remained on my playlists over the last 22 years and my more recent favorites include, Never Yours and Crossroad.

We arrived at Lucy’s place in Cartagena in the dark, settled in and got cleaned up. Unsurprisingly, we were still quite exhausted from the previous day as well as this day of traveling and volcanoing, so we skipped dinner and cozied up in bed at 8:30.