Nicaragua: Wound up at your door

More than five consecutive days of writing grants and sitting in front of computer screens while completing work reports left us anxious to get out of the office and experience a change of scenery, so we rewarded ourselves with a day of hiking. In that day we left our project worries behind and sought solace in a re-connection with nature. 

The bus dropped us off in a rural community where approximately 50 families live scattered across countless acres. With no map, no guide, and no real sense of direction, we asked the locals to point us in the direction of the waterfalls. On the first attempt, we arrived at the river. It was beautiful, but it was not a waterfall.

On the second attempt, we may have trespassed and ended up surrounded by ten cows grazing in the field. There were a few more attempts after that (we lost count), but we were not going to give up without completing our goal: find those waterfalls. With a bit of persistence and determination, we found them, and all the struggle was worth it. 

We hiked down to the base of the first waterfall, then descended further to find a second one, and spent a peaceful moment sitting at the top of the third waterfall while admiring the second one. Eventually we climbed our way back up, and decided to continue ascending to the top of a big hill (Minnesotans might consider it a mountain) which offered breathtaking views of the community. 

Getting out of the office and getting lost in nature rejuvenated my soul. I recently came upon the following words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which I think describe my recent hiking experience perfectly:

"Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges all men who come to her. How willingly we escape the sophistication and suffer nature to entrance us. The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently-reported spells of these places creep in on us. The stems of the pines, hemlocks, and oaks gleam to the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and the immortal year. How easily we walk into the opening landscape, absorbed by thoughts fast succeeding each other, until by degrees the recollection of home is crowded out of the mind, all memory obliterated by the beauty of the present. 

These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are plain pleasures, native to us which shame us out of our nonsense. Cities don't give the human sense enough space. We go out daily to feed the eyes on the horizon. We nestle in nature, and draw our living from her. We receive glances from the heavenly bodies, which call us to solitude."

Lucky are we who are able to access such beauty, healing, and perspective with incredible ease.