testmeat photoblog

if you've ever been to colombia, and specifically cartagena, then this photo probably doesn't look that surreal. for the majority that don't fall into that category i can see how this looks pretty fucked up. and in truth it kinda is. it's a place called volcan de lodo el totumo which is a mud volcano. legend has it that it used to be a run-of-the-mill fire and lava volcano until a priest banished the devil inside and turned it into mud. obviously the legend is steeped in bollocks. either way it's a fun place to visit as you can bathe in the crater. it's a surreal experience as the mud is so thick and dense. as a result it's really hard to stand vertically as your body naturally tends to float flat. it was also almost (although as i crucially discovered not) impossible to put you head under and sink. after some massaging and bathing we had the idea of lying down flat from one end to the other and seeing if we could run across each other. i was tasked with asking that in spanish, which i'll admit wasn't a phrase i'd picked up in any of my previous classes. surprisingly they managed to understand and even more surprisingly they said it was no problem. no one ever made it to the final body before slipping and splashing into the mud, but we had fun trying.

this is one of the rare photos on this site that i didn't actually take myself. i was in the mud bath as well (off frame) so i gave my camera to a guy called antonio and asked him to take pictures for me. whilst i asked him to take this, he actually composed it and pressed the shutter, so i need to share the credit with him. then again i did the post processing, and gave him 3000 pesos, so i don't feel guilty at claiming this as my creation.

here's the original