An ‘hola’ to old companions and ‘top of the morning’ to a new Irish woman companion who like us is very smart or has a bad back, having her bag brought for her to her new digs. But soon on to more serious business, a very long high hill was laying in wait and Corrie who had an hours sleep due to a fever was not excited about it. She made it, as steep as anything in the Pyrenees, amazed with her resilience or simply thinking she might be holding me back. I hope she doesn’t tire herself out dreaming about it tonight
We continued along the ‘Meseta which are even more open plains and now we can see snow peaks to the north. The large bare hills I talked of in an earlier post now are quite small and look like monks caps with a long flowing robe of green. This ‘Meseta’ is a high plateau that covers over forty percent of Spain and while it is glorious now, it is freezing and windblown in winter, and blistering hot in summer. Apart from the major cities the Meseta is sparsely populated. The earth coloured villages are mostly identified by their church tower or grain silo. Due to mechanisation, many of these villages are abandoned or inhabited by older people, the younger ones having moved in the 1960s or 70s in search of work.
Its green glory today wraps around lavender fields with yellow and mauve flowers bordering the edges while the large drains between these edges and our track are lined with grasses and nettles and scattered poppies.
