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Pacaya Volcano Hike, Antigua,Guatemala

One the main attractions close to Antigua was trekking on, yes on a live active volcano - Pacaya volcano. The volcano has had an erruption a couple of weeks before I was there and while we did not see any lava as such, we did see lots of smoke coming out of the rocks and the sulfuric smell all over. When I went for the hike, it was pouring cats and dogs, but did not stop the expedition. They fit a whole bunch of us tourists at the back of a pickup truck and went in the jungle trails to the volcano. Was nice passing through lots of pineapple fields along the way and checking out the scenery - Also spotted a few wild horses in the pastures surrounding the volcano. It was nice to see fairly new rock formations from solidified lava and the smoke coming out of the earth's core. Too bad we did not get to see any lava as such, but was a nice trek and interesting scenery.

Note : I did trip trip last year and just procastinated and very late in posting.

Filed under // antigua central america backpacking guatemala pacaya travel travelogue trekking volcano

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Volcan de Totumo, Colombia

North of Cartagena de Indias, there is a 15m high Clay Volcano - The Volcan de Totumo - Yes, the volcano spits out mud/clay from within rather than lava.

We can climb to the top of the volcano and then immerse in the crater in the warm clay. It's supposed to be good for skin :)

We got to the volcano and changed into our swimming trunks and climbed up the little baby volcano and one by one, all of the persons in our tour bus got in the volcano and they have the volcano staff who rub the mud on you and give you a massage and then let you float off. It was such a weird feeling to be floating on 15m metres of mud and yet no sinking. The mud is very buoyant and keeps our body up. So the staff were just making us float or stand up whichever was our turn in the process. They also had staff which we gave our camera to, and they took pictures of us while we were immersed in the mud.

After the mud immersion, we got off and walked to a nearby lake, where they had the local village women help bath off the mud off our body by pouring water on us from the lake.

Very unique experience indeed to get in that mud. I did feel very fresh afterwards :)

For each of the services, cameramen, massagemen, bathwomen, we had to tip them 3000 COP (USD 1.5) and the fee to enter the volcano was 2000 COP (USD 1).

After the volcano, we went to a beach where we enjoyed the caribbean sea and had a good lunch of freshly caught fish !