This morning was a real treat. Rita and I met Peggy and her friend Pepe (He said is formal name too fast for me to get it) and Pepe drove us up to the Huitepec ecological reserve, which turns out to be only a kilometer past CIESAS. Pepe has a red beetle which was more comfortable than I remembered them.
The walk through the reserve was largely a climb up a hillside through the trees on well-marked paths. Some trees were labeled (very few) and there were markers with questions about whether you were noticing differences in vegetation as the altitude increased. I tended to keep my eyes down on the path because I tend to trip on uneven surfaces, and this gave me a chance to enjoy the variety of ferns. Maidenhair fern does quite well here, as well as many familiar from BC and some I'd never seen before. We also looked at a lot of bromeliads, especially pato de gallo or chicken foot. As we got higher we could see huge trees whose tops reach the forest canopy and are covered with bromeliads. See photo. While I looked at ferns, RIta collected dried leaves and bits of fallen bark with lichen attached. These will be living in Argentina soon.
The route up took about an hour and a half, but only a half hour coming down. On the way down, Pepe explained to us that it was land privately purchased and turned into a reserve.
On the way back we stopped at the garden where vegetables are grown organically for Casa del Pan. They loaded Pepe up with some samples and he let us have some of them This included the first kale I'd seen in Mexico. A real treat. They also had a small patch of wheat, but no maize that I could see.
For me the rest of the day was work, work, work. James and Peggy worked on their Political Science projects here and Rita built a fabulous fire in the fireplace to warm up the evening.
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