Parc Jura Vaudois

Wild orchids and nasty ticks on one of my favorite Swiss hiking regions

It was too warm and humid in the forest…

In the lower lands of the Parc Jura Vaudois, near the ancient town of Romainmotier, I was just walking in the same forest where this river goes, on a very hot and humid day:

There were many white and pink orchids. You saw two above, and here you have two more:

In warmth and moisture, thrive nasty ticks

When it’s hot and humid, ticks stalk hikers from the grasses. They await at the tips of elongated leaves, with their arms open and ready to hook onto the hairs of whatever mammal passes by. Including humans:

And that’s a big problem because a very large fraction of the ticks around here transmit two diseases:

• Lyme’s disease, a bacterial disease hard to recover from but is at least treatable with antibiotics.
• Encephalitis, a viral disease that you cannot treat but for which science has given us vaccines.

Because I go hiking so often, I got my vaccine as soon as I knew about these diseases:

Want more wild orchids?

Isn’t it cool that there are so many orchids all around here? Check out these stories…

With wild orchids at around 1800 m of altitude:

Shots of several species of wild orchids -find the one that doesn’t have green parts!:

And when orchids mix with daffodils:

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