You know a sure fire way to top off a hard day for your siblings? Make them sleep in a tent. I don’t want to trek back to the bungalow at night, and the twins don’t want to have to walk all the way back here again tomorrow.
So here we go, a night in the tent. I decide to chug energy drinks from the market through the night and let them have it. They should be at least a little comfortable.
Cléo goes in second, when Cyril is already snoring.
I’m happy he’s sleeping well at least. Get some rest my darlings, we still have quite a way to go after all.
The morning rises early… and it brings an early tarantula with it, as Cyril has finally resorted to use a bush as a toilet.
Sorry little bro. I should have warned you to never go outside without spider repellent. Ever.
The kiddos are getting tired, but we’re still a team. And we have more of the temple to explore.
Cléo and I dig around in old dirt piles in the temple first. I give her some pointers and make sure we can find the most out of it. Together, we dig up the base of an Observer Relic. I can’t wait to complete the relic and try it out.
Cyril ran down, all the way down past three gates to find a port-a-potty. He doesn’t see the irony in going against the plants and the jungle animals and the possible traps just to get to a fancy toilet. And then complaining about the insects he found there.
In other news, the food I brought was in my bag. You know, the one that now lives below quicksand. It was going to be okay though, because I thought we shouldn’t put all of our provisions in the same basket, and handed half of them over to Cléo before we left!
So Cléo has some food for us to munch on as dinner, right? She didn’t forget it, right?
Yes, she did. It’s very fresh, recently picked, but uncooked avocado and tomatoes for us tonight. I don’t mind, but Cléo and Cyril are a bit disgruntled. I promise them we’ll get a much more satisfying meal tomorrow morning, but I can tell from their hateful stares I’m really only making it worse.
In the meantime, the best I can do is also what I do best.
I get solving on the temple’s enigmas.
Some of them under the watchful stare of the omiscan llama god. Well, his statue.
I’m not saying I get it right every time. Far from that, in fact. I get the very first interaction with the temple guardian very, very wrong, and I get my first mystical touch of this trip.
And it’s a curse. A bad curse. I would rather have been turned back into a shiny blue skeleton.
Like a wave crashing on tired shores, I get overwhelmed by loneliness. The feeling that there’s no one in this world with me, no one who even wants to be with me, starting with my family.
And the dark side glances my siblings have been shooting at me don’t help.
Well, the side glances Cléo has been shooting at me. Cyril is still outside, trying to find more avocados, he said. Really, the three of us know he’s avoiding me.
We’ve made it! The sun is setting over Selvadorada, right on time to hit the stairs to the entrance chamber. The golden sunlight casts the last of the cold shadows on the stone. We’re getting ready to climb up — or more precisely, I’m motivating the kids to get climbing.
Cyril is having none of it. “Who even knows what’s inside that temple!” he says. “Curses and everything! You got turned into a skeleton once! I’m not going in there.”
I don’t force him into it — I’d feel terrible if he also got turned into a skeleton now.
What we find in the entrance chamber is far, far from curses and traps, though.
Apparently someone had a dance party in there!
Hopefully not the skeletons.
If I hadn’t lost my bag in the quicksand, I could probably rappel down that hole in the ground — guess we’ll have to go the long way around.
This time the traps are tricky ones.
And yet, it’s either we solve them, or we walk through electricity.
Another mile, another gate passed. I dropped my backpack in a patch of quicksand on the way, and no amount of swinging around with my machete could retrieve it. My desperate attempts did help me literally land on an old buried treasure chest when I lost my balance, so not all was lost.
This was mom’s favorite part of the forest. Way up there, where you can have a clear overlook of most of the southern side of the jungle.
From here, you can even clearly see our bungalow. I sort of wish I had a glider or something. Landing straight on the roof would be something else.
Maybe I could even land in the stream below. The water looks cool, refreshing, and I am burning up and covered in grass after all.
On the other hand, I could also crash on the rocks. I4ll just enjoy the view for now.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 