Talking about animals, we reached the top of the hill. Before my eyes, a vast plain appeared, dark as if after a fire. My first association was a scene from the movie The Lion King, when Mufasa showed his son the kingdom, illuminated by the morning sun, and then pointed to the shadowy place and said that it was beyond the border and he should never go there. This valley looked shadowy, despite the sun already shining. There were many trees with dark, almost black leaves, which gave the impression that the entire forest was burned. From the hill, we could see sharp rocks between the trees shining in the sunlight like jewelry on black fabric. The forest looked scary and mysterious. I glanced at my companions, they just smiled and walked briskly down toward the forest.
When we crossed the forest boundary, I saw that almost everywhere between the trees there was dark green moss and a lot of fallen and rotting tree trunks and branches. The forest was not dense, but all the trees had very broad crowns, covering the sky so much that we walked as if in a tunnel. Interestingly, the tree crowns did not touch each other; they maintained gaps between their crowns, creating thin blue lines that provided enough light to move around without a flashlight or torch. The air was very humid, smelling of decay and mushrooms. The path was much narrower and overgrown, we walked single file, with Butterfly in the lead, then me, and White Finger at the end. The plants on both sides of the path had dewdrops on them, and after a few minutes of walking, my pants were wet from the knees down. Fortunately, my shoes were waterproof and remained dry inside.
We walked in silence; from behind Butterfly's basket in front of me, I could see him diligently looking to the sides and searching for something. I turned and saw that White Finger was also looking around carefully.
"Are you looking for something?" I asked out of curiosity.
"We're checking the trees to find the right ones," Butterfly replied.
"What do you mean by 'right ones'?" I asked again.
"The branch must be as thick as an arm," he showed his still childish arm and pointed to his wrist, then continued, "and the tree must be twisted, like it's contorted. You'll see when we find one."
I nodded and we walked on. Although the forest was on a large plain, it was by no means flat. There were many ravines of varying depths, some even over three meters. The path sometimes led down one side of a ravine and then back up the other. There was some climbing on the slippery forest floor, but the route was not particularly difficult, and the empty baskets did not weigh much. I tried to count steps from the village, but a few times I forgot or wasn't sure, so I started over, at least giving me some idea of the distances we were covering with our brisk hiking pace. I regretted not having my smart sports watch; I could have had a lot of interesting data and statistics from our journey, and most importantly, I could have recorded my route on Strava and boasted to others about the exotic paths I walk and what an active person I am. It's intriguing how significant this was in my life. If it weren't for the fact that running helped me relax after mental work and positively affected my psyche, my only motivation for being active would be to share my achievements with others and earn badges for completing challenges. This era of mobile phones, the so-called "Stay Connected," gave us the ability to stay in constant contact and was definitely a positive change in our society. In hindsight, one can see that our lives and priorities have changed. For several good years, contact and social life have moved from the real world to the digital one. Being with family members, there is almost no real contact, everyone with their nose in their phone. I've been here for only two days, but looking at the locals, I can see that their contact with each other is different, more natural and sincere.

We walked in silence; my companions were constantly looking around. Sometimes one of them would veer off the path and go deeper into the forest to examine a tree more closely, then return to the path and continue our march. As an introvert, I was a proponent of limiting conversations to a minimum, but in their case, it seemed they understood each other without a single word. However, I had too many questions; I wanted to use the time to learn more and began asking them about their age, childhood, how they became gatherers, and about their lives in general. Both answered very willingly and it seemed that rarely anyone asked them such things. We talked about learning, passing on knowledge to others, their parents, and the elders in the village. Suddenly White Finger asked:
"And how old are you?"
He surprised me a bit, I had to think. The last birthday I remember, I was 44 years old. How much time has passed, I don't know. So I answered:
"Around forty-five."
Both boys looked at me with wide eyes, and Butterfly said in a surprised voice:
"Then you are an old man!"