Continued…

After the last chant came to an end we sat silent for a time, I opened my eyes with a new clarity and crispness as we all came back from the worlds we had visited. We sat marveling at the nature around us, whispering, laughing and enjoying each others company on the floor in the crown of the castle. We gazed up at the sky from our place in the shadow of the great Corcavado mountain, its glowing blue light shining down on us.

 

It might have been late, it could have been early but I savored the idea of moving on. After a quick check in we all decided we wanted to see more of what could be found in Parque Lage. We wound back down the rocks piled up around the castle tower making our way through tall grasses and back over the barrier to the rock paved path. We crept through the darkness, every far off noise bringing with it a slight shudder in my chest. Perola led us up a long curving stone staircase at the edge of a pond that shimmered in the night like smooth black glass. Surrounded by the sound of rushing water we reached the end of the stairs, ducked another barricade and scrambled up the precariously slippery moss covered stones to the top. We rested there, on the large stones at the top of the falls, the sounds of traveling water lulling me into a deep contented peace.

It was awhile before we moved again but eventually we came down from the falls and followed the dark pathways of the gardens to the opening of a cave. I could hardly believe my eyes as we walked through the mouth of the cave and into a vast cavern. The air was moist and smelled of minerals and long stalactites hung from the ceiling as we walked slowly into a world far away from any that I had ever known. We rambled through long winding corridors and along paths cut into the side of the cave that overlooked an abyss of rock formations. Our wandering led us to a cave formed underneath a giant boulder supported by two other massive stones and we all crawled in and found our places on cool damp rocks and sat comfortably silent. In the stillness I felt such love for all my friends, I could not see them but their presence was near and tangible.

 

Fired by curiosity we explored further, discovering more caves. We crossed mossy bridges over trickling streams, climbed over the gate of the aquarium to catch a glimpse of the fish in their off hours and scaled walls onto the balconies of the old Parque Lage mansion. On our way out of the gardens we passed by the castle that we had climbed in the beginning of our journey. This time we went inside the lower chamber and I felt a sense of the magic that we had conjured there hours before. A flashlight was shone into the top of the inside of the tower revealing three bats hanging like pods from a cocoa tree. Perola started to sing, her angelic voice stirred something in me and I began to sing with her. Our voices weaved a melody. Mica, who came with us, added the bass and made the walls of the chamber resonate. The sounds reflected off the walls of the towers and returned back to us with the fullness of a choir. The harmonies awoke the bats and they began to fly in circles above our heads. We all stood looking up, mouths slightly open, watching them dance in the stale air of the tower.

Before we left Perola led us to the old wash house where th

e slaves used to wash clothes. There was a long washtub and above it, carved into the side of the mountain was a water chute about a square meter around. Four of us, pulled by an intense desire to know where it led, climbed into it, army crawling into the black hole until we could come to our knees further in. We had no idea where it would take us and it was in this moment while crawling up the stone chute in the dark full of a shivering excitement that I remembered the moment hours earlier where we were sitting around after dinner pondering the evening’s activity. In each moment, I thought, choices present themselves. Each choice leads to many others and the sum total is what, in retrospect, we call our lives. What if I had stayed home that night and watched a movie? What are the choices I am making now and where will they lead me?

If I follow my heart and passion, I will be on to the next adventure.

Climbing up the water shoot