After we took the tour of Pitch Lake in southern Trinidad that I wrote about yesterday, we drove an hour east to check out a mud volcano. Not really knowing what to expect we drove down a mud road (it rained most of the morning) on the final approach that was really sketchy in the car I rented. As we bounced up and down on the rocks and ruts and slide back and forth in the mud we wondered if we should park the car and walk so we did not get it stuck. That question was solved for us when we slide to the side and started spinning the tires and going no where. I then announced we would not drive any farther (haha) and Holly and James got out to push as I drove in reverse. Once we got the car out, turned around, and parked on gravel we walked the last half a mile. I tried to do it in sandals but quickly switched to barefoot when the sandals gathered mud.
Once there we found a round hole with gray mud in it. We tested the depth, but could not feel the bottom. Finally James jumped in and said he was floating fine and could not touch the bottom. I jumped in next and promptly went in over my head, YUCK!!!!! The mud was everywhere on my body and did not taste good. Haha. We continued to wallow in the mud volcano and slide down the hill in the mud. When it was time to clean off we found a pond that was like the ones we swam in during the summers on the farm. This was the “clean” water and we were happy to have it. Haha
Wikipedia had to say the following about mud volcanos in Trinidad:
The regional geology of southern Trinidad consists of a series of ridges, anticlines with shale diapiric cores, and sedimentary volcanoes. According to Woodside, “host muds and/or shales become over pressured and under compacted in relation to the surrounding sediments…mud or shale diapirs or mud volcanoes result because of the unstable semi-fluid nature of the methane-charged, undercompacted shales/muds.” The mud volcanoes are aligned along east-northeast parallel trends.
You know I think it would be easier to show you the mud volcano that tell you about it. Check out this little video blog (vlog) I made of our time there.
