The temperature was ninety degrees. Though my sun hat promised complete protection and the tops of my feet were covered--a friend had told me that the Florida sun had raised blisters on her insteps--rather than walk in the hot sun we took the tram tour, and for an hour I tried to shut out the driver's voice. He spoke rapidly, without pausing, stuffing us with information. The man in front of me fell asleep; I envied him, and thought of the person in an Emily Dickinson poem who is known to "close the Valves of her attention--like stone." I couldn't manage to shut the valve all the way. By the time we reached the last stop I was ready to scream. It had been years since I had been forced to listen to anyone.John got our lunch from the car; we hiked back along a road free of trams, and ate at a shady table--bananas, Greek yogurt, dates, bread, plenty of water. Iguanas skittered across the grass.
A few steps from our table was the conservatory, which housed orchids, like this yellow one.
We headed back to our car, taking a different way than we had come, happy to find our own way in the shade of a long pergola, where these aqua marine flowers hung from a vine, glowing as if someone had turned on a light switch.
i know what you means about the incessant tour guide. They are often following a script and not much motivated to vary the spiel and throw in some silence, since the rubes seem to go for it and they feel so smart. Bores usually do.
ReplyDeleteHello, Bluedog: It was a canned speech; another tour-tram went by and we heard the exact same words. Who knows, maybe the guides have been instructed not to vary the speech; if so, why do they obey?
ReplyDeleteThose are beautiful yellow orchids! Reminds me of some of the ones I saw at a museum in Costa Rica. They used to make sculptures out of gold of orchids that looked like a cross between a flower and a butterfly....
ReplyDeletesounds like such a wonderful trip, in spite of the canned blab, and a delicious lunch.
ReplyDeleteIt was, Melissa. If we hadn't gotten off the beaten path, we never would have seen the yellow orchids. Eli, here's to getting off beaten paths!
ReplyDeleteIt has often struck me that when one is in the company of someone who talks and talks in that information-giving way it is as though one is being sucked dry rather than filled. In novels too, I begin to shut the valves when there is too much information.
ReplyDeleteLovely lit-up pergola.
Hello, Signs. It was the longest pergola I've ever seen. I agree: the relentless talk that is supposed to fill one with information has the opposite effect.
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