Colombia welcomes tourists

BY NEDA VANOVAC

As my propeller plane put-putts up into the air and we leave Panama behind, I pray for a quick death should this ancient aircraft not make it to Colombia.

If we crash, we'll be stranded in the Darien Gap, a swathe of jungle straddling the Central and South American border, where even the mighty Panamericana Highway stops.

Crossing on foot is possible – if you're willing to brave the rebels, drug-smugglers and outlaws, not to mention the jaguars, anacondas and other creepy-crawlies that call the Darien home.

Colombia, my destination, is not thought to be much safer.

I knew little about it, with my only ideas coming from the 1984 Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner film, Romancing the Stone, where the bad guys look like Danny DeVito, accents are ludicrous and the innocent are fed to crocodiles. Needless to say, I wasn't prepared.

In stifling humidity, we cruised into the old walled town of Cartagena, following the palm-tree lined Caribbean, where I found myself unprepared for the cooing prostitutes lining the street, or the screaming match next door to our hotel, a passionate dispute over a game of cards. What I did know was that I loved every second of it.

Colombia is for the adventurous. It has been wracked by civil conflict for the past 50 years, to say nothing of the gangs that have proliferated in the post-Escobar power vacuum.

A news search reveals only the dire: the country struggles with human rights issues, is in conflict with most of its neighbours, is riddled with corruption, drought and large-scale hunger.

But to be swayed by such reports is to miss out on visiting a culturally and geographically diverse country that leaves all visitors wanting more.

The people of Colombia are known as the friendliest in all of Latin America. The landscapes are varied and breathtaking, ranging from salt pans in the north to lush jungle, rolling arid grasslands, fertile mountains and hundreds of kilometres of perfect coastlines.

Tourism is booming, with cheap flights flourishing and visitors welcomed with open arms to enjoy the country's myriad charms.

Cartagena de Indias is one of Colombia's most beautiful cities, founded in 1533 and steeped in a swashbuckling history of pirates and gold.

The winding cobbled streets, leafy plazas and pastel houses have charmed visitors for centuries. It's a city made to get lost in, and in the historical centre, you can – the government has cleaned it up in the face of increased tourism. Night time strolls for ice cream are no cause for concern.

The newer area of Getsemani, immediately outside of the historical centre, however, is more real, pulsating with life.

Vendors hawk fruit I had never before seen, and carts of delicious street food abound – a beef kebab with capsicum, potato and an arepa, a flat Colombian bread, will set you back about a dollar.

Men on corners sell lemonade from appropriated fish tanks filled with ice, which, if you're polite, they'll refill for free as they do for their taxista friends who swing by, gulping down the city's most refreshing beverage for 30c a glass.

Cartagena is beautiful but it's not sterile.

If you can handle the heat, then there's no limit to the activities on offer: scuba diving old Spanish wrecks, boating tours to islands of pristine white sand, and more churches and museums than you probably care to visit.

But there is only one thing that my companion and I want to do, and that is to visit the mud volcaNo

Located halfway between Cartagena and Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast, El Volcan Lodo del Totumo is Colombia's tallest mud volcano, standing at 20 metres.

This overgrown molehill was created by natural gases emitted by decaying organic matter underground, the mounting pressure of which pushes the mud upwards where it hardens, creating a miniature volcano with a mud-filled crater – the perfect tourist destination.

A shiny new minibus, a testament to the growing tourism industry, collected us at 8.30am – we were happy to be enveloped in the arctic blast of air-conditioning symptomatic of all Colombian buses.

An hour later with our guide, Nieves, we were in front of a crooked set of stairs winding up to the crater.

I apprehensively watched my fellow tourists clamber up in their swimmers. I opted to take my sarong.

"Leave EVERYTHING here," said Nieves imperiously.

I fought for my modesty. "I'm taking it," I told her.

She shrugged, but her expression read, idiot. I'd show her.

At the top was a small arena dominated by a mud pit reinforced with logs, people looming from its depths like creatures from the black lagoon, covered head to toe in gloopy viscous grey mud.

In we hopped. The mud was warm, thick and buoyant. Massages were on offer by masseurs for a dollar or two, and strangers bumped into one another, everyone from kids to grandpas giggling and pointing fingers at a hotspot emitting loud sulfurous bubbles.

We got down to business – styling our hair into the latest mud fashions and applying mud masks to every inch of our bodies.

Mud in the eyes and mouth was impossible to avoid, and also to wipe off. Lucky it's rich in minerals; it's sold around the country as a beauty must-have.

It began to rain, the surface of the pit pocked with raindrops. Party over, we hopped out, only to find that the fun was just beginning. Coated in mud, with nothing to wipe it on to, the rocky ground became a danger and the stairs a deathtrap.

This being Colombia, security measures were non-existent and visions of a broken back and paralysis swam before my eyes.

I was hindered by my sarong, which, true to Nieves' prediction, was soaked by rain and mud and utterly useless. Once bemudded, modesty went out the window. Clinging with slippery hands to the wooden railing we edged down, one foot at a time.

At the bottom, we were directed to the lagoon next door to wash off. Easier said than done – I was halfway there when FWOMP! I fell flat on my butt. I sat stunned, wondering if my coccyx was broken. I decided not.

A kind man edged over and allowed me to cover his arms in mud as I dragged myself up and tiptoed to the lagoon where I gratefully collapsed.

A middle-aged woman waded over and unceremoniously tipped a bucket over my head, before proceeding to scrub the skin off my bones. I was dunked under water so many times drowning seemed imminent.

"Take off your top!" she demanded.

I liked to think of myself as a liberated woman who takes her top off when she wants to, not when ord- oh, okay. There you go.

She proceeded to wring my top out, while I took the opportunity to snatch a few breaths.

"Now your pants!"

She washed them as I sat in the murky water like a chastised toddler, hoping no one would notice me – they didn't. They were all being scrubbed down too.

Of course, none of these services were free. As Nieves pointed out, the people living near the volcano survive entirely off tourism and tips.

My washerwoman made five thousand pesos, or $NZ3.11 from each victim, I mean, customer. The same went for the pit photographers and masseurs.

Given that the daily minimum wage is 15,000 pesos ($NZ9.96), and maybe 100 people visit the volcano each day, they're making decent money, by Colombian standards.

We squelched back on to the bus, exfoliated and mud-masked.

I watched the arid landscape whizz past, and shivered all the way back to Cartagena. Drat that air conditioning.

IF YOU GO

Diversitours offer seven day tours of Cartagena and the gorgeous Tayrona National Park from $US630 ($NZ859).

Escazu Tours offer one-day, multi-day and tailored trips to Cartagena and Colombia's Caribbean region.

- AAP