Even Four Gears Can't Spoil a Magic Morning

Hola! What a beautiful day yesterday here in Alamos. In the morning I set off at dawn on new old bike and headed for the hills. I went out to the archway to test out the new tune job that was done on the bike the previous day. Getting a tune up meant I should be able to get up two hills and out to the archway, in high gear and no time flat.
WRONG.

I still only have four gears and they are all for long hauling, nothing at all for a hill. In fact I had to get off new old bike and foot it several times. I really hate to give up on the bike repair shop, but I think I will look for someone else to fix these gears. By the time I got home I could not even adjust any gears on the right handle.

Complaining is not really what this is about. Most of the Mexicanos do not have any bike gears. I would just really like to pay for a bike tune up and get a bike tune up. I know it is the bike repairman's nature to please and I think he can't fix the gears and does not have the heart to tell me so.

But the morning was almost magical, quiet, secretive. Because I was out and on the move so early, the yellow light filled the sky and it followed me out to the arches where I caught this great view of Mt Cacharamba. I was mezmerized by the color of the forests in the foreground and those just over the crest of some small hills. On my ride back home, the magic intensified as the light was coming on in a different way. Finally the sun had risen in the east and the reflecting light on the montanas to the west was just as brilliant, almost a profusion of chartreuse.
You can see how the deciduous tropical forest has come to life just in these two weeks of rain and it is filled with color.And then, even another lighting change as I rode down into the historic district where the sun had not hit yet in the streets, but the top of the Mirador hillside was beginning to glisten. On Calle Commercio, near the old Black Cat Market, the green parrots came roaring down the street, almost at head level. I could hear their chatter before I saw them and their striking green wings flashed in the sunlight. They swished back up the street and left as quickly as they had come. A bright yellow and black warbler hid on a fig tree branch and watched. A fat green Sonoran frog sat on a doorstep and as soon as I raised my camera to take his photo he hopped under the door and into a place I could not see.

The rain has brought on not only the green tropical forest in the mountains, and scurrying traveling guests, it has caused the jasmine to flower and fill the air with an overwhelmingly wonderful sweetness and it has made the lime and naranjita trees burst with tiny white flowers that emit their fruity scents in the early morning and late evenings. The breeze is steady and the smells drift along from hidden garden to street and back into hiding again. The scents yesterday morning were as notable as the light and on Calle Obregon I rode up and down twice because it smelled so wonderful.

It is a great time of movement, forests going brown to green, creatures in transit, floral scents beckoning from secret places, drifting on the wind, morning skies filled with a light that changes from yellow to pink to chartreuse, afternoon clouds that billow huge white mushrooms only to darken like night just as quickly. A lot of movement, changes and all very magical, of course.

I may only have four gears but they sure got me right where I needed to be yesterday, right smack in the middle of another magical morning in Alamos.