I love the sound of rain on our tent; it evokes the pitter-pat sound I remember falling asleep to as a little child in a log cabin in a northern forest.  Tonight’s rain is falling as we’re camped at the edge of the northernmost tropical rainforest in North America, just south of Ciudad Valles on the eastern fringe of the Sierra Madres.

agave field

We spent most of the morning visiting the “Palabra de Vida” mission in Ciudad Victoria.  The missionary wife found us in the fruit section of the grocery store downtown and introduced herself.  The children sipped hot chocolate and ate carmel filled empenadas topped with walnuts and chatted with our hostess while Tony and I quickly made use of her offer of internet access.  It is a huge mission with a church seating almost four thousand, radio and TV stations on site and a school as well as a full compliment of outreach oriented services for the local population.  If you’re interested, you can learn more about what they are doing at www.palabradevida.com.mx or www.worldmissionsoutreach.org We can certainly vouch for their hospitality toward strangers!

Sugar cane growing

The drive south from Victoria to Valles is breathtaking.  The two lane highway winds through low flat valleys, over tall plateaus and switchbacks through the mountains that dip down onto the plains.  The children were excited to see orange groves, sugar cane fields (as well at trucks piled high with both!) agave fields, bananas, tamarind and corn growing by the roadside.  Ezra’s eyes widened when he encountered a new species, “Mama!  What are those?!  Are they camel-cows?”  They were Brahma cattle, a whole herd, winding their way along a fence row to some unknown destination.  It was a day filled with firsts for our youngest.

Imagine their delight when we pulled into our campsite only to find it housed a secret thermal spring which the locals have cunningly captured in three sand bottomed pools.  They blew the plastic, candy filled, whistles our Manitoban neighbours gifted them with in abject joy as they danced around the grounds.  They can’t wait until morning when we’ve promised them a swim and a bath in the little concrete box created for the purpose with a 10” pipe delivering water in and another draining it back out into the stream from the bottom… it will doubtless be warmer water than we showered in last night!

Sugar cane truck

Dinner was a gamble.  We stared at the menu and recognized very little.  After several, “Que es estos?” type questions I ordered for everyone and we held our breath… unsure of what would materialize; sometimes even dinner is an adventure.  I knew Tony had steak coming, and I had fish… hard telling for the kids, but we had heard the fries were excellent and that’s all they really cared about anyway!  The fries WERE good and so were the thin deep fried steaks smothered in Mexican cheese that they split.  My fried fish arrived slathered in fried garlic (enough for three whole fish!) and strips of dried red chiles that are doing more for my cold this evening than a whole week’s worth of the pills I’ve been taking.  Ezra was intrigued by the fat slice of grilled onion that arrived on his plate and he enjoyed disassembling it, layer by layer, without breaking the rings.  “Ezra, just because you’re using a fork and a knife to get that to your mouth does NOT mean you’re using good manners,” I pointed out as he worked the onion trying to hook it with his tongue.  He finally got a bite off, leaving the remainder of the ring hanging by the membrane.  “Ahh!!  Look Daddy!  It’s hanging by the fat!!”  He giggled.  “Onions don’t have fat, Ez.”  “Oh, well then, it’s hanging by the skinny!”  He announced triumphantly, sucking the remainder of the ring into his mouth like a bird with a worm.  The rest of us dissolved into laughter and the locals at the next table eyed us, no doubt wondering what the crazy gringos were finding so amusing.

We tucked the kids into their sleeping bags just as the rain began to fall steadily and sneaked off under the trees toward the thermal spring.  The steam smelled sulfurous as it rose from the surface, white in the moonlight.  It was not as warm as it looked, but it was warm enough, and we had the picture perfect tropical dream all to ourselves for the half an hour or so it took me to begin to shiver.