The rains which promised so much have now forsaken this mountain.
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While the landscape continues to burgeon with life, the rate of growth is starting to slow.
There has been no rain for the last five weeks and once again the hot drying winds from the Sahara are sucking the moisture from the earth.
The locals, long used to drought in this part of the world shake their wise heads darkly toward the intense blue skies. Unsullied as they are by any hint of cloud.
Already the greens are becoming tinged with brown as the desiccating levante plucks and frets at the edges of the leaves.
Once more this landscape anxiously awaits the return of the Thunderbird and the life sustaining rains.
Photo: Inula drying in the wind at Los Banos de la Luz. Courtesy of the author.