Route 58 begins its life in Naha as a three-lane highway, mainland Okinawa's bulging digestive track bumper to bumper with private vehicles, tour buses, motor bikes and lumbering military convoys.
Once beyond the outskirts of Nago, a shabby but endearingly laconic town at the midriff of the island, the enjambment of supermarkets, convenience stores, car dealerships, U.S. Army surplus stores, tattoo studios and bars serving Kentucky bourbon that characterize Route 58 begin to recede in the rearview mirror of my scooter, replaced by field, forest and small settlements.
Here, the very air itself changes, a mix of cooler drafts and forest mulch, the living breath of Yanbaru Forest. More jungle than woodland, with great clumps of banyan and ficus trees, sago palms, bird's nest ferns growing in the cleavages of branches, stream embankments dense with mangrove and pandanus, the denser parts of the forest are alive with wild hibiscus, yellow allamanda, heliconia and canopies of the luminous, scarlet blossoms of flame trees.