Machallila

North to Machallila looking out the bus window at the ghostly dry white of scrub trees and the tall bulbous upside down trunks of silk kapoks punctuating the hillsides. This is the tropical dry forest, part of the choco extending South from the Western Colombian coast about as far as here. One of the most threatened ecosystems in Latin America, perhaps in the world. So much of it cleared only about 1 or 2% of these forests remain. We are here on our last morning on the coast to walk the forest trails from the hills down to the ocean. Emerging from the forest desert to the deep blue of the Pacific washing up on white sands.

Sculpted driftwood washed up on the shore, my towel laid out with a book basking in the sun like a lounging lizard, and the cool wash of the ocean caressing these tired sunkissed shoulders.

Ahhhhaaaaaaaa, Machallila...