Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The foothills of the Sierra Nevada cascade into the Caribbean behind Tío Alfredo. Jon Hull
The wind blows off of the Caribbean and sweeps through the palms, past the cacti, into the hills. It rides the ridges, plunges into the valleys, and eases up the slopes over the coffee farms.
This is where the breeze finds me now—outstretched in a hammock with nothing below me for a few hundred feet—and I trust the ropes are tied well.
The sun is a dab of acrylic over the Caribbean. From here, the ocean is merely a suggestion on the horizon, an opaque gray-blue smudge of a painter’s knife. In the foreground, the tropical dry forest bursts forth.
We drove into the mountains, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, to visit a coffee farm today. Eleven of us packed into a van and bounced our way up the road from the desert climate in Santa Marta. The ride was a typical Latin American experience.
Roadside donkeys and chickens from cinder block towns watched as we chugged by. Motorbikes zipped past, left and right. Traffic laws were mostly obeyed.
Check out some photos from the trip below. Also, see more on Jessica’s blog post.
The driver turned off the air conditioning to give the engine extra power when we reached particularly steep portions of the road. We chugged up the mountain slowly. We made it in one piece.
In the past, my heart rate and blood pressure would have spiked from an experience like this. But these days—even when we teetered over a sheer drop in our van—I felt a sense of complete calm. Latin America has taught me to let go when there is nothing I can do.
Now, I lay over another sheer drop. The hammock sways. The tropical breeze washes over me. I trust the ropes are tied well.
Click to enlarge photos.
