The hanging bridges swayed more than I’d anticipated, flexing with each step. Unable to let go of the sides and filled with a fear of heights I hadn’t fully realised I had, little sightseeing was done from the bridges themselves. However majestic to tower over the canopy, I caught as few glances as possible through the grilled walkways beneath my feet, the safest hurrying I could muster while swaying 30m in the air.
A short cut reduced the number of bridges to cross, and back on paths, the ground solid again, I tried to take it all in. Buttress roots the size of upturned cars and vines dripping straight down from miles overhead. It was too big, too dense, too many greens and feelings and shapes. The intricate arteries of the canopy branched exploding against the sky and every surface was mossed, the leaves furred and populated.
Ficus aurea tangled up trees, and the symbiosis of wasps and figs was explained beneath the twining roots. Leaf-cutter ants march mesmerically across the path, bright green ribbons moving deep into the forest while Geoffroy’s spider monkeys launched themselves across trees in front of us, a green dipping procession with babies clinging on.
Rufous-tailed hummingbirds saw us safely on and off the last of the bridges, so unbirdlike thrumming in the streaming sunlight that I was momentarily distracted from my imminent thoughts of death. Blue green and the size of a thumb, I watched as he sat and cleaned his feathers, his tongue a silver thread or catch of the light.
a year in the garden 