Nature's Painting on the Wall

(Photo Taken by Adam Ivusich)

Two years ago my Family and I took a cruise that made a stop in Mexico. While there, on a whim, we decided to take a guided tour up into the dense forest of Puerto Vallarta. Being from suburban Maryland, I spend little to no time in nature. Therefore, I expected this tour to be a complete waste of time. As we ascended up the mountain, I found myself feeling more and more distant from civilization and becoming more in touch with the beauty of the surrounding nature. As the distant city grew farther away, as it disappeared behind the treetops, I realized that you can never truly understand the true beauty of nature until you truly immerse yourself in it.

Nature is a distant concept that many cannot truly understand. Although it is agreeable that things in nature can be beautiful, it is hard to truly grasp their allure. Paintings of beaches and sunsets drape the walls of houses all over America, but why do people admire such things that are so distant from themselves? As we continued to climb the mountain, things became noticeable, things that I would have never paid attention to before. I was immersed in the colors of the forest. The green of the vines started to blend with the autumn color of the leaves. Suddenly, my daydream was interrupted, “Mire su paso para dragones”, the tour guide proclaimed. I was soon told by my dad that she had said “Watch your step for geckos.” I looked down for the first time. The ground was covered with little six inch long geckos running rampant everywhere. It was like walking on a carpet of geckos; from that point on, every few steps I took, I made sure to check my shoes for dead geckos. Within ten minutes of hiking, we reached el precipicio de dragon, The Dragon’s Cliff. From this cliff’s edge I could overlook the entire city of Puerto Vallarta. The beach, the port, the town, everything was encompassed in one snapshot. I imagined this picture on the wall in our living room. Could it stand side by side with the breaking waves of Ocean City, or the painting of the lighthouse in Hilton Head? I realized that the things we describe as beautiful or breath-taking, are mostly things that we cannot control, natural beauties in their natural habitat.

As we descended the mountain, I started to appreciate the true beauty of the land. It was like I was leaving an unfamiliar area and reentering civilization; from the unknown back to the known. While being immersed in the forest, I gained a sense of awareness that I would never had in suburbia. Colors, beings, and settings came into my view that I was previously blind to. As I look back on my time in the jungle, I realize that the only reason that I understood the beauty of the forest was because I was completely surrounded by it. People can talk about the beauty of nature in casual conversation, but only those who truly immerse themselves in the environment can understand the splendor it can provide to the human eye.