LA SELVA TREPADORA Y LAS HORMIGAS (JUNGLE VINE AND ANTS)

It was maybe just a few months after I moved to this apartment that I noticed a vine crawling up my back wall.  It was a nice green thing and once it reached the roof of my cabaña, I started training it to grow across the beam of the cabaña.  Since it was the middle of winter there was no rain.  It only rains here during the summer months.  So I dropped a hose over the wall and tried to give it some water.  That is when I noticed it was growing out of a crack in concrete three floors below.  It was futile trying to water it. After a few months the leaves turned yellow and it seemed to die back.  I figured it was over and cut it all back to the wall.  Then it started up again.  Everything grows here because of the climate and the rain fall.   Across the street is a three story tall mango tree where a split leaf philodendron has grown all the way to the top of the tree.

This is the third time that it has managed to cross the beam.  Each time there are more shoots.  In fact it has continued to grow up and has now reached the roof of the apartment next door (four floors from the ground).   I like the green jungle look and encourage it to grow along the beam.  The unruly vine you see at one end grows out of one of the palm pots and is the most common vine in Puerto Vallarta.  It has no tendrils and refused to grow where I want it to.  It is totally unmanageable, so I just let it do it's own thing.

My jungle vine is a bright green, but only has a tiny cluster flower that last a day.  You can see that it has almost taken over my door.    The down side (other than it periodically dying back) are the ants they use it as a highway from the ground below.  I hate ants and these are the big black and red ones.  We have three kinds of ants here.  We have the usual black ones (like back in The States) and a tiny almost microscopic ant that is so small unless it is on a white surface you would never see it.  I hate them all, but the big black and red ones are the scariest.  

 I have my apartment sprayed for ants about every 5 or 6 months.   He  sprays my roof top, balcony, and the walls, floors and ceiling of my apartment.  He even sprays outside every window.   It takes him three or four hours and charges 250 pesos (about $20.00).  Because he is a nice guy who speaks some English (and because he does a good job) I have recommended him to several friends who have all been very pleased with the results.  He says it is good for six months (I call at the first sign of a bug).  Any bug that finds its way to my floor will suddenly start shaking and roll over dead.  I love it.  He claims it is non-toxic to humans.  He even told me it was not necessary to wash the utensils and dishes that our exposed ( I do it anyway).

But these huge black and red ants have found a way to avoid the poison by crawling along the vine.  They do not seem to be going anywhere, but running back and forth along the vine.  Maybe they get some kind of nectar from the vine.  At any rate I still hate them.  Spraying tended to hurt the new leaves, so I started picking them off and then squashing them.  It is sort of a Mexican Jack and the Beanstalk Story.  Only to the ants, I am the giant.