mr. micklewrited me good
i talked my tour guide into taking me out on his day off. it would be his choice- i figure leave it to the professional, right?
he called me at 630am and let me know he'd be at my front door in 30 minutes and to please be ready with bikini in hand and hunger in my belly.
in the rainforest of oz you know better than to apply makeup to an already sweat drenched face- i was sitting on the porch of my australian share house by 645.
sure enough, not a minute late, my hunky personal tour guide made his noisy entrance by pulling up in his very-used vw bus. he met me on the passenger side to open my door with everyone's favorite salutation, "g'day".
he had a whole day planned, but kept it secret. all he told me was that he was taking me to a world only known to the aboriginals and a few locals. this treasured place was sacred ground. i knew that i had struck gold.
we drove for 3 hours before stopping at a fruit stand where we loaded up for a picnic to be had in the jungle (don't tell him i called it that).
we drove for a few more hours. we talked and talked about the beauties of australia, about the adventures he's had and the adventures i long for. we stole many smiles and gazes. he was a handsome man with sun drenched skin and calloused feet (this was a man that never wore a shirt or shoes and woke up every morning just to go outside). one of my many dream men...
alas, we reach daintree- the oldest rainforest in the world. he turns off the highway and onto a dirt "road". i begin to become a touch scared- this is exactly what my mama told me never to do; there wasn't another soul on earth that knew my plans for the day and for all i knew i'd be served as dinner to a tribe of cannibalistic abos where any remains would be thrown to the crocs. he sees i'm nervous and grazes my leg with his hand of assurance.
another 20 minutes of driving on a trail not meant for us white folk and he parks the car under a canopy of green trees. the rainforest is a very difficult place to explain because even when you are there you cannot decipher where one tree ends and the other begins, every tree and vine is entangled with the touch of God and kissed by years of never being touched. in these parts it is easy to wonder if you are the first person to ever step in that exact spot.
he tells me to take my shoes off to be at one with the earth and to make for sure steps. he leads the way in a very quick and confident fashion (speed in the unknown is an experience all it's own)- jumping over logs, crawling under logs, and pulling the drapes of vines to the side for me to get through. my jungle gentleman.
about another 30 minutes into my presumed path of death and we reach it. we reach the 'blue hole'. without any thought on his part he runs up an uprooted tree- jumps to a vine- and swings out over the bluest water i have ever seen. he lets go and falls deep into the dream. before he comes up for air i take suit and rip off my clothes and run up the same path he just set (minus the vine swinging). i dove in and swam with all of my might in an attempt to reach the bottom- but i couldn't, it was too deep.
we swam all day, only taking beer breaks and sweet walks up a few of the streams that fueled the hole. he kissed me and told me that i was his favorite american. and i told him that this was my favorite day.
as the sun began falling, he told me that we had to leave- the dream wasn't ours to be had there come sundown.
on the ride home we needed to make a pit stop and then hell, one pot of beer wouldn't hurt. well, one pot of beer doesn't exist in port douglas- we ended up "out on the piss". lucky for us we were driving in a hotel.
we found a spot on the beach to park and took the van's bedding and convenient candles sea side. we skinny dipped in the warm ocean to the light of the full moon and just floated, dreaming of ways to make our world never end.
