in the mountains! Or not at all. Whomever wrote ¨The plains...¨ clearly were using poetic license becuz the only rains I´ve had were during my first week in the mountains and the ¨plains¨or flatter areas then were as dry as a bone.
But I left the heat (hurray) and since my last post the weather has cooled and even gotten cold at times. I´ve had amazing roads, trails and backroads, most with little or no trafffic, most with incredible views and scenery, plus a welcome return to walking IN the mountains rather than around or through them. Last night it was like I´d camped along the Virgin River in Zion Natl Park and the nite before I had a mountain top to myself with 360 degree views of other peaks all around. And silence. So still and quiet. I closed week three with a lovely sunset and started week four with a glorious sunrise. In fact I just sat on that mountain for hours in the AM, it was too pretty to move. Later that same day while sitting above a canyon, this large soaring eagle flew 50 feet past me. It took my breath away.
With the mountains has come more darling villages wrapped around hill bases with yet another ubiquitous castle perched above. They are dazzling. And beyone the village base, it´s farmland or trees, none of that distasteful sprawl that we do in America. Our sense of aesthetics is seriously lacking; here beauty is revered.
And I really love all the old stone homes. I am forever in awe of the crumbling medeival homes and the ones still occupied. I have to pinch my arm to remind myself I´m in EUROPE and not some long lost non-western country. Oh, it´s not as entirely 19th century as I describe. The farmers are out with their tractors and baby wipes are available in the stores. But the man with his hand held hoe clearing an irrigation ditch isn´t something I see in the states anymore. Or the other morning, on the outskirts of a town, some young men were getting ready to do some day labor gig. They were in a small roadside cafe and they had faces from photos from the 1920s with eyes unjaded by time. They looked at me like I was some space alien, just stared, and I really felt like I was somewhere else. The old folks are out everyday. Active. And the pueblos like these people just weather so beautifully with time.
I´m in Teruel now. It´s a lovely larger town of about 30,000 with excellent architecture and very friendly people. I wasn´t going to come through here but I had to pick up a DHL package which contained a new debit card since I´d left my other one in a machine in Granada. My friend Christopher was instrumental in assuring it got to me. I will be off tomorrow taking small roads towards Cantavieja and La Iglesuela Del Cid. I´m trying to stick to smaller and or greener roads and there are few I´ve chosen that have disappointed. This past week has been pretty spectacular.
I bought new shoes today too. My first pair are nearly shoy but that´s what 23-30 miles a day will do and I MUST take care of my feet!
Time to sleep in a BED. First time in two weeks.
Peace.
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