Giving thanks in the cloud forest

I'm just down to sea level from about 9,000 feet after spending Thanksgiving in Bosque de Cuyes in Ayabaca, Piura, a cloud forest and national protected area in northern Peru with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers Angela, Patrick and Aaron. I baked a mango and apple pie on a charcoal fire for the feast and hiked for hours everyday. It was gorgeous. I also learned that could totally bake a mango pie. I thought mango would be too soupy by itself, but it was not at all. And my mom's pie crust recipe cooks up great on charcoal in a Dutch oven.

We took a hike on Thanksgiving morning out to a quiet spot in the cloud forest and just sat for a bit and meditated. I listened to the quiet and the birds and felt like I was swimming in the green and the fog. Everything grows on top of everything else, trees, moss, orchids, vines, insects, mold, mushrooms, ferns, and epiphytes (a new life form to me). The clouds are like animals. They come and go through the mountains as they please. I stood on a peak, watched them move in and out, and they all made me feel breathtakingly small. It was very easy to remember how much I have to be thankful for there.

The last day I went out with a group of bird biologists and my friend Aaron's youth group and they taught me the names of the birds that I had been seeing in the forest. There were hummingbirds called Quinde Jaspeado and a kind of turkey that lives in that little patch of forest called Pava de Monte. The kids LOVED tramping around in the forest and telling me about all of the different species.