There is a theory of education that suggests we thrive with a little bit of danger.
A school in Japan has even been built around that concept. Where we travel straight hallways between our classrooms and neat aisles around our desks, they navigate trees, nets, ladders, ropes and slides, the idea being, human beings flourish with those added elements of risk.
I had never travelled with my boys, just the three of us, until last winter. In the past, I was quite an intrepid traveller and I yearned to get back off the beaten path. The thought of venturing into the unknown with my children was somewhat terrifying, but finally, I decided to take us to Belize.
I settled on a rustic lodge deep in the jungle along the Macal River, run by a mother who had raised five children there. It was a homey base for our explorations, which included travelling on horseback to little-known Mayan ruins and ceremonial caves and returning, with our guide, in a canoe. Gliding over the murky water, we passed branches crowned with giant iguanas, sunning themselves calmly as if oblivious to predators. It turns out, according to our guide, that iguanas have a fail-safe defense system: in case of danger, they simply let go of the branch, plunge into the river and let the water carry them to safety.
Our last day at the lodge came too quickly and I was looking for a memorable way to end our stay. There was a butterfly sanctuary a few miles downriver and the owner of the lodge recommended that we travel there by inner tube, something she had enjoyed doing decades ago with her own children. There would be small rapids to manoeuvre, she disclosed, but after that, a smooth and easy twenty-minute ride past plenty of other paths and docks until finally, we would arrive at the dock for the sanctuary. Tubing to see rare butterflies? I couldn’t think of a more idyllic way to say goodbye to the jungle.
It was mid-afternoon when the boys and I grabbed inner tubes from behind the lodge for our twenty-minute ride downstream. There was an odd black cloud in the distance and I cocked one eyebrow at the lodge keeper. “Thunder cloud?” I asked.
“No, ma’am,” she assured me. “No storm today.”
We carried our tubes to the river and enthusiastically threw them in and plunked ourselves on top, holding hands with my youngest son and his tube in the middle so that we wouldn’t get separated downstream. We pushed off and easily cleared the little rapids a short way from the lodge. That much was fun. But then the unforeseen happened: the river just … stopped. Not a ripple in sight.
Still water in a canoe or a kayak can be a blessing but in a tube it is an altogether different experience. Inner tubes are awkward and unwieldy – no voyageur has ever travelled by tube. Holding tightly to each other’s hands, we kicked and flailed to the best of our ability, but got nowhere. With the rapids above us, there was no turning back. None of the docks or paths our lodge owner had described were visible now, long overtaken by decades of jungle growth. Two and a half hours of floundering later, we could still see no sign of civilization – let alone the butterfly sanctuary – and now dusk was fast approaching, not to mention, a foreboding shroud of black storm clouds flaring with lightning.
My stomach clenched in fear: we were going to need shelter. Without a word to the boys, I eyed the shoreline furtively for a safe place to camp. I knew that Belize had tarantulas because I had seen them. But what about snakes? And crocodiles? Our canoe guide the day before had evaded the question, declining to comment on the presence of crocodiles in the Macal River, but assuring us with a good-natured wink that there were definitely, beyond a doubt, croco-logs.
Thunder crashed. “Was that thunder, Mom?” asked my eldest in a concerned tone.
“I’m not sure, sweetheart,” I lied. “We’ll be fine. Just keep treading.” Inside, I felt sick with dread.
I was still maintaining a thin veneer of calm when something huge crashed into the dark water right behind us. At the thought of one of those prehistoric lizards underfoot, I finally lost it.
“#@%*! Falling iguana!” I yelled, not having realized, until that moment, how close I was to the edge.
The boys stared at me, wide-eyed, then collapsed into giggles at their cussing mother while making a conspicuous effort to hold their toes above water. I was at once aware of how much peril we were in yet how ridiculous we looked. In my head, I pictured an aerial photograph of us all: a woman and two boys in floppy inner tubes, holding hands like paper dolls, alone and standstill in the heart of the not-so-raging Macal with lightning flashing all around. I had to pull myself together. I swallowed hard and silently uttered what has become my mantra in recent years: All available help, please.
We flailed hopelessly in place for a few more minutes when two dots appeared farther downriver. I squinted to make them out. “Canoes!” my youngest son identified. “It’s two canoes!” All three of us started screaming for help and flapping arms and legs wildly to get their attention. In a few minutes, they were within earshot.
“Please help us!” I called. “We’ve lost our current and are stuck on the river. We’re trying to get to the butterfly sanctuary downstream. Are you able to tow our tubes there?” By then, they were close enough for me to discern a man and a woman, each with a child in their canoe.
The man hesitated. “Well, actually,” he began, “my wife and I are whitewater canoe rescue experts from Ottawa, Canada.” No kidding?! This help was really impressive.
“Towing your tubes would just weigh us down and we’d never beat the storm,” he explained. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to carry out a proper canoe rescue on you and your boys so that we can show our kids how it’s done.” Go ahead, knock yourselves out!
They proceeded to hoist our exhausted bodies into their canoes, boys first, and then pull our tubes in after us. Even to these experts, the storm looked threatening, and I could see them exchange worried glances as my boys made fast friends with their kids. “We can get to the dock before it hits,” I heard the wife say, “match my speed!” And her husband did, all the way to the butterfly sanctuary. We hit the dock just as the sky opened.
Back safely in Millbrook, one of my sons would be asked for a school creative writing assignment: have you ever been in danger? He would report to me how proud he was to have a concrete example.
Even so, a little danger goes a long way. Around the same time, a poster hanging in several of the downtown shop windows depicted smiling, happy people in inner tubes and beckoned innocently: FLOAT YOUR FANNY DOWN THE GANNY. The boys and I saw it and just stared at each other. Not in your life.
Babble by Anita Odessa
