Mud

I'm making a habit of finding myself naked and ridiculous while travelling.

On the Camino, in Spain, I darted in and out of slippy bathroom blocks, desperately avoiding the 'communal' bit of communal showers.

In India, I found myself in a wooden shack, sitting on an upturned bucket, naked and slathered head to toe in oil enjoying/enduring a head massage.

And now, in Colombia, I've sat naked in a shallow bit of river, while being waterboarded by a local woman armed with only an old food container and an unrelenting sense of purpose. 

Forcibly relieved of my bikini top and bottoms and blinded by the torrents of water gushing over me, my only option was to submit to the iron will of this stranger while she scrubbed me like an unruly baby.

Minutes earlier I had presented myself at the side of the river, covered head to toe in mud. Like everyone else, I'd done the walk barefoot, over sharp stones, and so we processed to the water's edge like an orderly troop of John Wayne impersonators.

Before that? 

Oh you know, I'd been for your usual spa treatment, you know the kind...

Where you queue up the side of a dormant volcano before submerging yourself into its crater that's filled with custard-like mud.

You know...when you're laying on your back, a strange man covers you in mud and slides you across the crater....

Where you wait in a line of human sardines to be massaged before being slid once again to the exit ladder...

Where you drag yourself up, leaving all your dignity in the murky depths behind you, as you heave yourself over the edge.

That.

I was so disorientated that when the man who wipes excess mud from you asked for my arm in Spanish (brazo), I got confused and started take off my bikini top.

But dear reader, I want you to know that from start to finish, I laughed and laughed and laughed. 

I'm laughing writing about it now. 

Find joy in the absurd.

Head to Volcan del Totumo and give yourself a good dunking.