In the city of Cartagena ,Colombia, there is an active volcano. Mary and I jumped into its crater, and we had a ball.

The volcano, obviously, is not the typical, angry, fiery, lava-spewing volcano that is pictured in so many disaster movies. It is no Kualamiea or Vesuvius. But it is a volcano, none the less, and an active one at that.

The crater of this volcano is filled wth mud…warm, bubbling mud. And, though is has not as of yet hit the status of major tourist attraction, it is definitely headed in that direction. The volcano is owned by a Colombian family who used to make their meager by fishing. It erupted on their property one day a few years back, and now they make money by massaging tourists in mud and washing them off in a nearby river afterwards.

As we approached the volcano, it looked like a huge anthill that shot up fifty feet into the air. It was comprised out of dried mud that belched up from the bowels of the earth. We climbed the rickety, uneven wood and mud steps to the peak, and then descended via a crude ladder about ten feet into crater where we encountered the warm and bubbling mud.

When I released my grip on the ladder, I was amazed to find myself so buoyant that I had to fight to get my body, with the exception of my head, submerged in the mud. (And that is a good thing, because the mud inside the crater goes down over 2,300 meters – over a mile and a quarter deep.)

Once in the giant mud bath, attendants took Mary and I and massaged our entire bodies with mud – from feet to neck, in my case, and from feet to face in Mary’s case.

After about fifteen minutes of luxuriating in the mud like pigs in a sty, we climbed out of the crater and descended the volcano via another set or rickety, uneven steps.

We then walked to the river, which was only a few hundred feet away. Once at the river, a washer-woman took my hand and led me into the water. When I was about knee-deep, she motioned for me to sit. I did so, and she began washing the slowly drying, congealing mud off of my body. When my exposed body parts were reasonably clean, she reached down and tugged on my bathing suit, indicating that I should take it off. I looked around. Every other tourist in the water was doing the same thing, and the water was murky enough to provide a modicum of modesty. So, I removed my clothing and let the woman do her job.

When it was over, and I had my clothes back on my body, the attendant took me by the hand and started leading me back to the banks of the river. It was at that point that I heard the familiar strains of my wife’s voice as she screamed out, “JIM!” I spun around, and found Mary about five feet away from me, still sitting in the water. Her washer-woman was bending over her, frantically trying to pull up Mary’s swimsuit, and not having much success. I waded over to her, and when Mary turned to face me, I found myself staring at two, white, round and buoyant old friends. I quickly reached over, and with one tug, put the twins back in their rightful place, on the inside of Mary’s swimsuit.

Rather than being embarrassed by the episode, Mary just shrugged it off and laughed.

As we rode the bus back to Cartagena, where our boat was docked, we both agreed that this experience was definitely one of the highlights of our trip thus far.

I mean, come on! How many people can say that they jumped into the crater of an active volcano, and not only lived to tell about it, but laughed through the entire experience, and then performed wonderful acts of exhibitionism?

I tell you, life doesn’t get much better than that!