If You Went Walking with Me, This is How it Might Be

Buried Treasure? 

Today we packed the cooler with tuna sandwiches, chips, and water and headed out for a hike.  Our destination included horses, the ocean, ruins and four old graves.  The kids and I had been there, but it was all new to Dh.

The horses were happy to see us.  They would have been even happier if we had brought carrots!  Note to self:  pack carrots when you’re heading out to see the horses! 

How to explain the hike?  Think red dirt, rocks, hermit crabs in shells.  Think tropical trees that arch above your head and obscure the sky.   If you are picturing flowering tropical trees, scratch that.  Think waves crashing beyond your vision, grass to your waist, sticky hands in your hands.  Think of voices singing “The Ants Go Marching One by One” . . . 

There was more, of course.  There always is. 

The path crossed a “gut” and on another day, we’re going to explore it.  A gut is a natural gutter of rocks, some of them boulder sized.  Usually there is some water in the gut.  Many times it’s just a trickle but that trickle will grow into a small river when the rains come to the island. 

Just beyond the gut was a road . . .we followed it and found ourselves gazing at ruins.  One day, we’ll look at little closer at those ruins.  They are probably the remains of a sugar plantation from the 1700s.   Not too far from the ruins were four graves.  They were marble crypts, to be precise . . .white at one time, but now a greenish hue from the moss that grows on them.  I thought that they were probably ancient because it was hard to make out the names on most of them . . .though the RIP was very obvious.  But the one grave was very easy to read, and it was the grave of a three year old girl who died in 1933.  Poor thing.  

As we were walking past the ruins and the graves, an older gentleman was walking past, too.  Being me and willing to talk to strangers if I think they have something interesting to say, I asked him if he knew anything about this place. 

He pointed to a gaping hole and told me that someone had buried treasure there.  And years later, a someone else, probably descendents of whoever had buried the treasure, dug it up.  And he said that it was probably buried in huge clay pots, not a treasure chest like we always think of when we picture buried treasure.  He said that some day he was going to come and look in that hole for bits of pottery.  When he found them, he’d date the pottery and know just when the treasure had been buried.  Now,  this guy may have been just telling me a story someone made up.  I don’t know.  If so, it was a pleasant bit of fiction.  

Have a wonderful day, and may you sense some wonder around you, too.  Even better, may you find a buried treasure!  J