The Yumbo people walked here for centuries. Now I walk through a cloud, green dripping all around, the call of a toucan dopplering towards me before a blur of color reveals the bird itself. Water hangs in the air suspended as droplets, sits low in valleys, moves swiftly over terrain that is unendingly green. There are so many shades—emerald, jade and malachite. Apple and olive and pea green, too. This forest is the color of moss and of palms, of ferns and of figs. Bromeliads and philodendrons and orchids hang off canopy trees, chasing sunlight. The metallic glint of a hummingbird flashes, then disappears into the green.
