Beautiful, Absurd, and Accidental

What can you find at ten a.m in Google Maps while searching for nearby hikes? Directions to a temple. What can you find while walking through a temple? Fruit, incense, shockingly agile cats, a lizard, unexplained ash, and a song to hum incessantly throughout the day. What can you find as you leave the temple? A green spot on Google Maps. What can you find when you walk towards that green spot? Government sanctioned “squatter structures,” a quarry, a series of damns, a giant green reservoir where a swimming man is checking traps, a path that always seems to end just around the corner, and an unfathomable number of stairs. What will you find if you follow the stairs? Children’s artwork, potted plants, shaded spots where you can sit by the stream, water pipes, transmission towers, discarded clothing, gardens, clay, ever-changing ecosystems, trees that have given up their bark, trees whose limbs twist through the path and make you step to the side, wind, humidity, a helicopter pad, many unofficial trails, and finally, one of the best views of my entire life. We accidentally hiked a mountain today and it was spectacular, absurd, wonderful, incomparable.