In June, I decided it was a good idea to trade in the most beautiful months in Washington for the rainiest months in Mexico. The stubborn part of me wants to make this trip extend through March of next year just so I can write how glorious it is to be sunbathing on a beach in Mexico in February. Perhaps I am not so stubborn, because February feels a very long way away.
Like clockwork, the rain starts to fall between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon... unless there is a hurricane blowing in from the coast. With a hurricane, the rain relentlessly beats the earth for five days straight. This morning found us with our first sunbreak in five days, so we decided to make good on the promise of sun and head for the Parque Ecológica Huitepec outside of town. Of course, to get to the park, we first have to go into the city center, make a quick stop at the bank, make a quick stop at the internet, visit the market, eat lunch and locate the Cambi heading in the correct direction. Finally, we are dropped off outside the park around 2:00 in the afternoon with black and angry clouds rolling in over the hills we are about to climb. Another good idea is starting our hike knowing full well the angry clouds contain rain but instead deciding to believe the sunbreaks that are lulling us into the forest like sneaky little faeries. With only 2km of trails ahead, we figure we can return in minutes should our luck run out.
The trail is beautiful with bushes growing on trees growing on other trees. This is the tropical forest that I remember from my days in Costa Rica, where everything seems to be fighting everything else for survival. After a quarter mile, the trail turns into switchbacks and slippery looking wood steps. We continue our climb, glad for the exercise and thinking that a 2km loop will soon find us at the top.
We climb... and climb... and climb. The clouds have since lowered down among the trees and everything smells like water dripping on vegetation. Finally, a peal of thunder shakes the sky around us. Our rain will be accompanied with lightning and our unfortunate more than 2 km hike finds us up along the underside of the storm. With the added effect of a flash of lightning and peal of thunder, the clouds dramatically drop their tired arms and release a downpour on the earth no so far below. We, being on that earth among those trees now targeted by rapidly falling water, begin to run along the trail that has sinced flattened and hinted at return.
As luck would have it, we encounter a rest station and decide to wait out the worse of the storm. Three Belgium folk join us and we now have a very wet and cold party among the Huitepec mountains. The lightning continues to get closer to our sad little hut, startling sleeping Violet and charging the air with electricity. The rain turns to hail which returns to rain, but shows no sign of stopping. Our path becomes a river and our hut starts to leak. At some point, the lightning stops but the rain continues to fall harder. We decide to leave the hut and get the baby to a warmer and drier place, now running down the mountain trail turned stream in the pouring rain. At some point, misery leaves me and I start to laugh as I watch Holly in front of me dodge the deeper looking puddles. Emily is carrying baby Violet behind us.
Finally, after our clothes are soaked through and Emily has sacrificed her knee in a fall to protect Violet, we arrive at the entrance to the park and take shelter in the entrance station. Water is dripping from every point of our bodies; mud now covers the lower half of our legs. In one last joke played on us, the rain stops, clouds break, and our sneaky little sun faeries return in a brillant display dancing off the wet surfaces of... well, everything. Thus concludes our ridiculous walk in the rain.
Plants growing on trees that grow on other trees.
Our path among wood nymphs and faeries.
Our path, now turned small stream.
Optimistic and hoping the rain will stop, while feeling cold and hungry.
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