Today we left the grids and indecipherable traffic rules for the road up into the cloud forests. Dense green leaves curved us around bends, and road signs warned to watch out for sloths, big cats and coati. The sloth on the sign looked already run over, its closed foot stretched awkwardly ahead.
The bright, blue-skied sunlight of San Jose became whiter and wetter as we went higher, then the clear sky suddenly disappeared, nothing but white rolling off either side of the road. Streaks of cloud passed windscreen level across the road in front of us. Everything was wet, and the wind stripped the palms down to flagpoles, their tattered remains streaming into the nothing around them.
Strange moss-covered trees staggered up hillsides and loomed down from the ridges, sinister and leafless in their lichen dripping. Lilac blue hydrangeas bordered yards and dotted the roadside, appearing suddenly and surreally out of place.
a year in the garden 