Fine Bark, Crawling Vines

Outside the smoke and clatter of the inland Central American towns, the searing tropical days took on a new charm: beneath the canopy of a rich jungle, the high sun warmed instead of burned. Days could be spent lolling in a slow river; evenings passed watching lightning bugs with fellow travellers and expatriates around a bottle of bootleg potato wine.

Out for a walk on a dusty jungle road in the brief low-latitude dusk, I spotted these creeper vines on a giant tree trunk. I liked the way the shoots integrated themselves into the finest grooves of the bark, like dribbles of water somehow immune to gravity. The dark came fast as I photographed the tiny scene; walking quickly, I barely made it back to the river in time to see the lightning bugs.