The Dark Cave

The dark cave is a cave that is awesome, but has a few annoying rules that have to do with kids and ziplines.  It’s annoying that annoying rules can make me so annoyed.  Know what I mean?  We kayaked to a little beach under the zipline, which made me really annoyed, because I probably could have made it faster than everyone (you know what I mean if you read about my ziplining in the Gibbon post). But they didn’t let me do the zipline because I was too small, and they were mean.  They treated me and Mia like babies, which was the annoyingness of annoying.  Mom argued for a long, long, long time and then she lost.  I was proud of her for arguing, I like that she does that stuff.  But, the harder she went in, the worse it got.

After mom lost, we got in the stupid kayaks under the stupid ziplines, and had to paddle over to the beach while three other people zoomed above us.  We got out of our kayaks, and waited for a long time until a different group started to come.  Then I jumped into the water, swam to a little boardwalk that entered the mouth of the cave.  It was a big entrance, as big as sixteen thousand wrecking balls stacked on top of each other.  We walked on the boardwalk, I was in the front.

This other lady joked towards me, “Where are we going next guide?”  We all had a good laugh.  And then the real guide told me to stop, and I was like, “Oh, darn, I’m not the actual guide anymore!”

The cave started to get darker, as we went further in.  By the end of the boardwalk we had to turn on our headlamps, and we were walking on pebbles.  We got to a mudslide, two volunteers got to try it out, I was a little sad that I didn’t get to do it.  But then, I realized that we would do it at the end, so I got a little happier.

We walked to a narrow passage through the muddy rocks, walking on muddy mud.  I got to a little opening, and swished my feet around because there was soft and squishy mud that felt really good.  The guide stepped up onto a higher rock and told me to pass, letting me lead again.  I kept on walking, with mom right behind me.  The muddy mud got more watery and deeper.  And even deeper.  End even more deeper.  I remembered reading about the dark cave, and that you could float in the mud.  So I tried lifting my feet up.

I yelled up the passage, “I am floating!”

Mom and Mia said, “What?!  No!”

The sensation was crazy, I could lie on my stomach and just soar like an airplane.  I could sit like the Buddha for as long as I wanted, until I shifted my weight and fell on my back.  Now do you want to hear the Physics of it?  The thicker the substance gets, the floatier you can float.  The fancy scientist name is Archimedes’ Principle.  My dad made me say that.

This isn’t me, because we didn’t bring our cameras, but you should see what it looked like:

On the way out, in the little opening with soft squishy mud, Mom suggested a few of us wait behind the rest of the group and turn off our lights to have the “vision” of total darkness.  It was really neat to not be able to see my hand six inches in front of my face, four inches in front of my face, two inches in front of my face, a centimeter in front of my face.  Even right on my eye, I still couldn’t see my hand.  It was also a little bit scary because if I moved my foot, I would probably fall.

We turned on our lights, and headed out.  There was a fork in the trail, and I knew to go one way because the guide had told us it went to the top of the slide.  Dad was a little bit nervous about going that way because he didn’t know where it went, but I did.  Maybe he wasn’t listening to the guide on the way in.   We got to the top of the slide.  Mia and mom didn’t do the slide, but used a rope to walk down a steep spot next to the slide.  I went down thinking it would be fun, because mud is slippery and muddy.  But it kind of hurt, because there were rocks in the mud.

There was a spot to wash off our mud.  Even though we were very cold, and the water was very, very cold, we still splashed in to clean up.  Mom wasn’t very excited about more icy cold water, so she just let dad scoop up a tiny bit and drizzle it down her back.  I was laughing, because mom was screaming the whole time.  Once we got back into the light, she looked like a muddy, cold, mom monster.

Everyone got back into the kayaks this time, and paddled to a place to play in the water with a zipline to jump off of, a swing to jump off of, and an obstacle course, all above the water.  They had floaty bikes too.  This time they let me do everything, and everything but the obstacle course were fun.  The floating bikes were the most fun.

After we played in the water for a bit, we took showers and changed into some dry clothes.  I had started out the day annoyed, but in the end got happy.  It is interesting how a natural, fun experience can fix my annoyance for people treating me and Mia like babies.  Nature lets me be wild, and lets me be myself.

poe is out

Author: pongy7

I am 10 years old, i am in 4th grade, and love to play soccer and goof around. View all posts by pongy7