And Somehow We Found Ourselves in the Alpines

We were a small group today -- just six of us walking, and the rest taking the bus for various reasons.  We left at 5:40 in the morning, the earliest so far, and stopped for coffee (Cola Cao and yogurt for me) twice.  As sunlight lifted the fog and the darkness, we became aware that we were traversing forested mountains, the Montañas de Oca, full of purple flowers and a whistling breeze that stirred our feet and spirits.  At noon we had a picnic lunch by the road: bread, butter, chorizo, peach jam, cheese, almond cookies.  Cut-down cedars scented the air; trucks full of logs rolled by, slowing down so the drivers could wave and to keep down the dust.  After a gentle, gradual decline, we emerged into green fields, punctuated with stalks of vibrant purple bell blooms, little pink and white flowers amid wind-tossed wheat, cornflower blue butterflies flitting about my face, the rising red roofs of San Juan de Ortega, where we got ice cream, then Agés, where we met the rest of the group.  And then a chartered mini-bus to Burgos.