Adventures of a Sun Seeker: Day 18: From algal air to Spanish moss

AccuWeather pronounced "warm and humid" for today, Day 18. Yet another one of Accu's qualitative assessments of the weather. "Sunny and pleasant" has been another quip, in addition to one particularly gross day in Ithaca, where the app was downright emotional about the prognosis: "wet and dreary."

Humid it was. Our ride began ascending into a thick jungly forest heading west out of El Naranjo. The mountains we are in now are called the Sierra Madre range; the Sierra Gordas are more south. We were ecstatic to find out our trip has included a generous serving of TWO differently named mountain ranges.

The air was so moist there was basically algae in it. My hair in my helmet was sweaty enough I appeared recently showered, although my body was exactly the opposite. We crawled up into the rises. On other days I felt we have climbed *up* mountains, with a view from whence we came, but today I felt we were climbing *into* them. There was no view of our past passage, just vegetation, and if there had been a view the air was so thick that little could be seen.

The limbs of the trees were furry with hanging moss and epiphytes. Life hanging off of life. Knifey palm trees. Big ficus roots stretching finger-like across rocks. Tiny roadside weeds with brilliant red flowers like saxophones. The forest chirped and buzzed and cackled with the daily lives of insects and birds. Enterprising bugs flew into our eyes and ears.

Speck of sun spot in a rare parting for visibility.

Roots like dreadlocks in the air.

We climbed in this rich green world for about two hours, just grinding up and into and sweating like sprinkler systems. Then, the forest began to change. The density thinned out, the vines and epiphytes were gone, and dry red soil was visible. We had gotten west enough to leave the moisture from the gulf, which collects on the east side of the mountains. We blinked and found ourselves in a bright sunny dry world, where we could now see where we were. High up! The mountains loomed around us and the air was clear.

Blinking ourselves out into our world of visibility.

I get an enormous amount of joy from witnessing ecosystems change in this way, us moving through them under our own power--even when sore of butt and tired of legs--and able to notice details.

We get back on the bikes after our climbing breaks, and my legs feel like mashed potatoes. Give them 45 seconds and they're back to powerful normal, but there's just something seemingly insurmountable about starting up again. Ellie gets this also. "Come on you two!" she urged her legs. We always laugh when this happens, that combination of intense miserable sensation combined with the hilariousness of the situation.

The climbing seemed endless today, all 4,600 feet of it, and with essentially no towns for a fortifying coffee or proper baño. We bumped over some topes (speed bumps)--irritating for bicycling butts and our rattling paniers--in a little community consisting of horses, donkeys, and pigs grazing roadside, children playing, and men sitting. Not a cafe or a comedor to be found. "If this village is big enough to deserve topes it should be big enough to have some coffee somewhere!" said Ellie. Not so.

We ground along; after the moist lushness and then the clear views, we dreamed hopefully of a delicious descent into our destination city of Ciudad de Maíz. But instead more climbing, through a yet again entirely different world. This forest was spare save for all one type of tree, and each individual tree was draped thickly with grey fringy Spanish moss. It was as if each tree had not leaves of its own, but only enormous drapes of moss. Did you know Spanish moss is not actually a moss (a moss is a plant that does not flower, instead reproducing through spores)? Spanish moss is actually a bromeliad (the same family as pineapple!). The incredible profuseness of the Spanish moss gave this whole ecosystem a mystical and curated ambience, as if we had entered a set for a grey ghost movie.

Spanish moss takes over.

Our arrival into Ciudad de Maiz culminated with good coffee and a true gem of a hotel (only 300 pesos, $15 bucks), with a clean room decorated with paintings and statues and objects and pink walls and a leopard blanket. We can't stop giggling over this room, over how egregious the decorations are, and how charming. Not a room yet on this trip has come close to this. Most don't even bother with anything on the walls at all.