Dear Obiwan,

Obi today was truly amazing! Minus an extremely painful, clumsy injury.

Met a bunch of people at the hostel from all around the world. I chose to go to a Volcano that’s about an hour bus ride, the hostel helps arrange the tour. There were about 7 of us from our hostel going so we all stayed together throughout the day trip and it was so much fun and hilarious.

All it is is this active-(ish?) volcano that you walk up some steep steps to. Then it is a large-ish mud pit that goes like, 2000-3000 meters DEEP or something! But you just float! Then there are a bunch of men sitting in the mud and if you want you pay 5 mil- (less that 2 American dollars) for a massage. -also you can say no if you don’t want one.

Also 5 mil for a local guy to take pics with your phone.

Also 5 mil for these women in the water to bathe you!

But it was SO MUCH FUN. The temperature of the mud was perfect, warm but no too warm, and some how the air there was a little cooler than Cartagena. And the massage was lovely cause you are SOAKED in this mineral enriched volcanic MUD! Then we all hung out and I guess it was supposed to be for 30 mins, but one of the massage men was like “no, 20 mas minutos!” And we didn’t realize that we were I guess in trouble by our bus drive when they came and were like demanding us to get out quickly, which is hard while you’re floating in mud.

But after you climb down the steep steps, covered in mud, they guide you to some water with a bunch of women waiting by the water with little plastic bowls. One woman just warmly pointed “me and you!” Then shoved me down and started bathing me, like how your Grandmom bathed you when you were a little kid making a mess of yourself and you wanted to say “ow!” But didn’t? It was actually super lovely. Yes kinda rough as they just scrubbed this mud off of you. The most hilarious part was they just strip you naked without warning! I was in the water up to my neck and my bath lady just without warning unties my bathing suit that washing it out. Then demands me to take my bottoms off. I look around all of us are doing the same thing, just kinda sheepishly handing over these women our bathing suit bottoms and giggling. But the water was murky so it was ‘G’ rated don’t worry Obi!

LOOK AT THIS ONE BELOW. This is Oscar, he’s from Sweden, he said after seeing this photo ‘I look like the Orc from Lord of the Rings!’ HAHA! So accurate!:

After this on our ride back we got to see a beautiful sunset over the ocean.

then before dinner all of us volcano people had to shower…

And OBI, I injured myself in the shower!

I was using the ‘Dr. Bronner’s’ 14 in one shampoo, body wash, face wash, ETC. And I somehow, I like VIOLENTLY flung the soap directly into my right eye ball. It was so bad. It reminded me of the scene in ‘Fly Away Home’, the geese movie with Anna Paquin, and she gets soap shot into her eyes in the shower and just SCREAMS bloody murder.

So I run out, find Lea, this incredible woman who has been traveling with the Aussie and Brit crew for a few weeks. I knew I could run to her in a towel in a panic. Also, about 10 people were all chilling with Lea. And I run to her and she helps me clean out my eye with water then grabbed some eye drops and put them in my eye. She saved me!…I then still went out but…OW.

Jesus, Obi it was so bad. I never had an eye injury this bad before. It was half shut and tearing the whole night…so about 7 hours! And it kept filling up with this gooey stuff that would create a film over my eye ball and I’d just be blind out of that eye every half hour or so. By the end of the night I had to go to a 24-hour pharmacy and the pharmacist gave me cortisol eye drops and they felt AMAZING.

FYI- I woke up the next day and its like all better!

Any who, then for dinner I went out to eat with 4 people from today and Tom joined us as well- this awesome guy from the Bronx from our hostel. I had some spicey chicken and rice and vegetable dish that I loved! Then we headed back to the hostel and went out as a group of 15 people in Getsamani Cartagena where a lot of the fun bars and clubs are.

The night was a blast! We also met 2 guys who live here who danced a bunch and joined us for the rest of the night, they were so nice, funny, friendly and great dancers! Also got close with Hermees tonight! She’s from DC and we just hit it off!

View from bar!

Me, Hermees, Keltie, Lea

New friend from Colombia!!! (Also look at my eye injury)

Lea killing it on the dance floor

Buenas Noches!

I was told Cartagena was a ‘4 am city’ and man is that true. It was 3 am when I called it a night, luckily a few other people were as tired as me. But half of our group stayed out till 4 and were up even later. AND IT’S Wednesday. It’s just normal here :).

Alright my lamb.

I need a nap.

Love you so much Obiwan Kenobi Stanton,

Carly