Soon we had passed the ridge and looked down again into the Zautla valley.

The road was not as bad as we had anticipated.

As we made our upward climb, we found that the flame-colored orchids, few when we last passed that way, were out in quantity.

They are a terrestrial species, and the colors are a beautiful combination of flame-red with chrome-yellow.

The other day only the outer and lower flowers of the racemes were blown, but on this occasion the whole cluster was in bloom.