Into the Woods (We 18 Sep)

Today, we hiked up 300 metres or so to a forested plateau and we spent most of the day walking through forests, big stands of oak with broad swaths of heather, then pine, with a refreshing scent in the air.  Also our first exposure to ferns -- felt a lot like home.

Morning colours:

The oak trees here have very small leaves, and more compact growth. Reminded us of an alpine meadow:

Our friends, the fern.  We live in a temperate rain forest in BC Canada and many forest beds are loaded with ferns:

Loads of heather:

Fields of heather:

Pine forest -- it'd been planted.  Still great to walk through:

And acre after acre of sunflowers, with wind turbines in the background:

At one point, Jan noticed a happy face in a sunflower and thought, wow, a message from God!

Then we noticed other "messages from God".  This one is my favourite -- the Camino Yellow arrow.  Turns out it's very easy to draw on a sunflower's face -- I tried it.  

Good ol' maple tree framing the valley view:

Love these lone trees:

And a real nice Albergue to spend the afternoon and evening, in Atapuerca, a world heritage site for the discovery of early human settlement.  Dig still underway, and we were hoping to tour it, but you needed to reserve in advance and get a guide and reviews were poor.  So we skipped it.  This entire village had free wifi everywhere -- nice surprise.  Jan and others relaxing on the lawn:

While I stayed back at the Albergue to cook up yet another pot of white rice (with 2 hard boiled eggs), Jan headed out with Camino friends to enjoy a pilgrim meal ("best yet!").  Entire group fit around one table.  Three brothers-in-law from Ottawa (all bilingual, one also spoke Spanish), a  couple from France, a Mexican couple who spoke Spanish and English, and a retired English headmaster.  Great food, entertaining owner, lots of laughs.  What could be better.