Last night a storm blew through. There was a lot of wind, some lightening, but just a little rain. We were up at 0500 and out the door at 0600. The sun rises at 0700, so it was dark out. We got on an inland two lane highway running south.

The ride south was almost all farm land dotted with little towns. We did pass through one moderately large town. The vast majority of the land was covered in what seemed like endless olive tree plantations where the trees are planted far apart from one another in perfectly symmetrical rows. The land beneath the olive trees is ploughed, so we assume that other crops have been recently planted underneath the olives. Many of the olive tree groves had their property “fenced” off with a hedge of nasty looking cactus. We did see a few other crops actively growing in plots that did not contain olive trees, none that we recognized, though.

At one point we went through a small town where every single building, as well as the fences in front of the buildings, were covered with garlands of red chili peppers. The farm land surrounding the town was mostly the same crop, chili peppers. There were people in the fields picking the fruit, and once again, we were filled with amazement that people could be doing manual labor out in the heat with no water.

The day was mostly overcast, so the sun wasn’t beating down as hard as it had been the last few days. The air outside was noticeably cooler, but just as humid. So while it wasn’t nearly as bad, it was still muggy and uncomfortably hot out. The air was scented with that wonderful “after rain” perfume.

There were a lot of people Continue reading →