in the trees

Arriving at Ariau Towers felt like coming home to some land in my imagination where I knew I belonged. I'm sure the passport of my soul will show that I am a native of this most magical place.

It is a real life fucking hotel in trees.

When I was a kid I saw Disney's Swiss Family Robinson. About six hundred thousand times. Everything in that movie made my five-year-old heart sing and dance, And a lot of it was about to come true, except I probably wouldn't swing on vines and marry eleven-year-old Kevin Corcoran.

All the buildings are on and in trees and bolstered by scaffolds about fifty feet off the ground. There's a a bar-and-restaurant, dining hall, two chapels, bungalows,  dormitories, a small museum, a gift shop, an aquarium and even a night club, and it's all connected by miles and miles of catwalks.

There are entire hikes on catwalks through the jungle, which were by far my favorite part of our stay. Me and Tickby would just wander them looking for animals and laughing at how awesome it sounds when you burp in the wilderness.

Also, as we made the long walk from the docks to the lobby - all on catwalks - monkeys followed us.

(Do you know how badly i have longed for a monkey throughout my lifetime? MONKEYS.)

Plus, because it was off-season and the area had recently endured a destructive flood, it felt often like we had the entire place to ourselves, or were sharing it with a few nice people.

And finally: the whole place swayed. For serious, if you stopped moving or were lying in bed, you could feel the ground rocking gently under you, in what felt like the breeze.

Why none of this killed me - the heights, the ground rocking - I have no idea. Maybe because it wasn't a multi-thousand foot drop. Maybe because the motion wasn't in a car or gross bus. But i was in heaven.

Oh don't get me wrong, I got dehydration sickness and puked a couple times in the jungle, plus often had to take naps in between activities to recover from the relentless sun and humidity, but I didn't care. It was so wondrous I barely even noticed. I will go back there some day. I know it.

Oh, one more thing: our hotel room was in a circular carved-out-tree-like building, and was shaped like a notch, like one of the pie-piece notches in the Trivial Pursuit. It had a tiny balcony with chairs, an irregularly shaped floor, and painted moulds of jungle predators and birds on all the doors and walls. Ours was a jaguar. I was home.