My surroundings are gradually changing from desert back to jungle. Yesterday I crossed south over the Tropic of Cancer. Today I packed up my tent in a valley full of cactus plants. It was mostly a journey of downhill off the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains. I free wheeled past the first banana trees I'd seen since Asia. As a prepared my pasta dish in a grassy valley at sunset, I was joined by that all too familiar pest of the tropics, the mosquito. But at least I won't be getting any more punctures from those cactus plants. And by entering the tropics, natures evening tune had changed too. No more howls from the coyote but there are more birds and they are singing louder. Progress is slower through the jungle. There is more rolling hills and the meandering road rises and falls through these lush surroundings. Its a new heat too. The dry desert heat has become the hot and sticky tropical heat. The Huastac people of this region live a very simple life, but they have been very generous to me. Payment has been refused two days in a row for my lunch. Traffic has increased as I move away from the less populated desert regions and these roads don't have much in the line of a hard shoulder. I'm beginning to think the Mexican definition of safe driving is to hang the rosary beads on the rear view mirror and leave the driving to a higher power. But with 50 million Mexican drivers and so many crucifixes' by the side of the road, it should make these drivers' reconsider their belief's ability at multi-tasking.
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