Getting Lost...

Last evening I decided to try to check out some of the land that I've been living/working on. It's 5 acres of overgrown, soil not lava rock, land. We haven't nearly gone through most of it! It's a lot of land! I decided I would do a "perimeter check". I was hacking (with a machete) through the dense bush, making trails. I came across a detail maze of wild pig trails everywhere. I was hoping to not run into those guys. They are pretty afraid of us, but if you stumble upon them and their young you will probably have to deal with their razor sharp tusks. That is something I don't want to do.

I found hundreds of banana trees. There was soo many. There are bananas everywhere. Most of them won't producing because of the cane grass, or ferns growing all over them. I came across a family of coconut trees, two matured ones producing and 4 young fellows growing towards the sky. It started to rain on me really bad so I decided to seek shelter. I hid it out under need an immature coconut tree for 10 minutes as the storm passed. I decided to move on, when again I got hit with another quick storm. I had to hide in a pig trail underneath the ferns to stay dry. After that passed I decided to move outwards towards the road. As I started getting out towards the main road the ferns grow thick, really thick, and extremely tall. It was getting dark and these ferns were towering over my head all around me. There were bananas to the right, avocados to the left, and ferns as far as my eye could see in that area. There were also the vines vining up the ferns trying to choke them out, the cycle of life brought to you straight by nature.

The ferns were so thick it was getting tough chopping through all of them with my weak machete. I decided to get low and crawl through the mazes of pig tunnels everywhere. That worked pretty good for a while until it started to get really dark. It get's dark out here really fast since we're so close to the equator. I knew I had to get out of their quick and fast. So, I saw the tree line, which was full of mangos, liche, and avocados (all not fruiting, some flowering) and new that would be the best spot for me to go. It wouldn't be too dense of a walk out because of all of the shade these fellows provide. At this point, it was down pooring. I was drenched!

Continued....

The sky was dark and the ferns were above my head. All I could hear was the rain coming down, harder and harder. I have to admit I was getting a little worried. I wasn't that far away from the main road and the tree line to take me there, but deep inside I was a little iffy. Maybe this was because of the thoughts passing through my head of if this was the real bush, and I was far away from everything. The fact that I didn't have a safe zone/ shelter already set for night time would've been a huge mistake.

I got down on my knees, turned the head lamp on and crawled underneath all of the large ferns, popping my head up on occasion to see how far away I was. The ferns I was coming up to looked like they doubled in height, but thankfully it was just a hill. I was finally close to the tree line, and the rain was coming down the hardest I've seen it so far. With a few swipes of the machete I made it out of the bush and cut underneath a large, untamed, beautiful, flowering avocado tree. I was thankful to be out. Now all I had to do was cut a trail through all of the vines vining up the tree and I was free! The avocado and lychee tree provided some shelter from the rain while I made my final move out of there.

I was free, back on the road to the house. I hadn't showered in 11 days, our water catchment system didn't fill up until the night before. I didn't care that it was cold, I was taking a shower! I made it back to the homestead, stripped down, and took a quick, cold shower. It was enjoyable. I finished the night with some wild harvested avocados, some store bought tomatoes and pepper, and a nice fresh guacamole. Got in my sleeping bag, and did some reading until I drifted away- dreaming of those 5 acres of land that will one day feed mass amounts of people...