Day: June 18, 2018

Danger, Meet Enthusiasm

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And now we’re into the proper forest. This is where everything gets bigger, more beautiful, more impressive, but also more dangerous.

Hannah doesn’t mind, or really pay attention to, the dangers. She’s busy marveling about everything, trying to take it all it, buzzing from one spot to the other like she needs to see it all, to take it all in.

I have to remind her that we’re here for a week. She’s got some time to explore around.

“It’s not that,” she tells me, grinning. “It’s not that I’m afraid I won’t see everything. It’s just that I can’t get enough.”

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I’m working on opening another gate, and Hannah found an avocado tree. She loves avocados, and I feel like seeing them outside of a San Myshuno grocery store is enough to make her trip. She carefully picks them all and puts them in a satchel.

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Then without a thought for its sturdiness and the hopeless void below, she runs across a bridge of wood and ropes. Her footsteps on the planks are barely audible above the sound of the roaring waterfalls. It’s a beautiful sight, but my mother heart can’t really get over how the bridge sways with the wind and her stride.

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I’m really not feeling all that safe in this forest.

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Hannah still isn’t worried in the slightest, and it’s with utter bliss that she reaches the other side of the gorge, where she spots another potential excavation site.

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Right there, Hannah. There is danger right there, why are you not caring more?

Yet she keeps digging as an unidentified green snake slithers by her.

This kid is either really brave or impossibly reckless.

The First Door

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In search for information, we go inside the bar, where we meet the owner. She’s a very classy woman, and she’s incredibly friendly.

She asks us where we’re from, what we know about the country, and generally makes conversation. Hannah leads most of it for me. She explains her childhood dream was always to explore new places, and that Selvadorada was at the top of the list.

“Ha,” the owner says. “So… you will be looking for the Hidden Temple, I suppose?”

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“… Tell us more.”

I did bring us here to let Hannah fulfill her exploration dreams, but I didn’t find any information on a hidden temple; now not only are we both intrigued, we have a goal.

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I take the time to change into a more appropriate outfit, then we head to the edge of a jungle. There’s an archway that signals the start of a forgotten path, but it’s blocked by branches and vines. I’m not about to let my sixteen-year-old daughter struggle with a machete, so I send her exploring elsewhere.

“I got this,” I tell her, confident.

This is when twenty years of building muscle through yoga is going to come in handy.

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Hannah doesn’t idle about while I get to work on the branches. She founds a suspicious spot and immediately takes out chisel and hammer, and gets digging.

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A thorough, rigorous explorer who takes pictures of every discovery stage worth capturing. The sun emerges from behind a cloud just in time for her to take a good shot.

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And as the sun touches it, I put the last strike to my machete work, and the first door opens