I had the opportunity to travel to a lesser-visited area of the country known as Gallon Jug, Belize located within the largest contiguous forest north of the Amazon basin. My Community Health Worker sells clothing, vegetables and knick-knacks to villages all around Orange Walk, Belize but once a month always offers to take me with her to a -what seemed so mysterious- place called Gallon Jug. All I knew was that it was somewhere far away in the jungle of Belize with lots of jaguars and deer where coffee, hot sauce and mango jam was produced- so obviously I wanted to go! I finally had the opportunity to go with her and her husband this May. We traveled an hour and a half west and spent an hour south traveling through winding dirt roads in the dense jungle until we reached a little clearing for Sylvester Village and Chan Chich Hotel. While she visited her regular customers to sell, I spent the weekend wandering the forest, trails, rivers and lagoons with children from the village. “I know this jungle like the back of my hand” The treks brought us up and around unexcavated Mayan ruins, an odd “zoro” or turkey would hysterically cross our path, we sat in the shade of enormous century old trees, talked about their encounters with dangerous animals like jaguars, crocodiles and boa constrictors and spoke about professional and educational dreams that they have to study things like marine biology and attending high school in the United States. As we walked, Kayla ran up to me with wild flowers scattered along the sides of the trail until I had the cutest little crazy looking bouquet. We would stop to listen to scampers in the leaves, birdcalls and shouting howler monkeys. It all reminded me so much of my youth exploring the New Hampshire forests. Gallon Jug was a snapshot of a magical childhood in the jungle of rural Belize.