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<TITLE>Somport Pass/Aragon Route early May 2001</TITLE>
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<TT>continued from today's previous note:<BR>
<BR>
The Aragon countryside reminded me of the mountains of Northern New Mexico<BR>
in spring time. From what I'd read I'd expected something much harsher.<BR>
It's a landscape to delight a Westerner's heart, and it was decked in spring<BR>
glory. Tiny white and blue wildflowers carpeted the ground underfoot.<BR>
Densely blossoming yellows of Spanish broom covered the hills and brushed<BR>
our legs where the path was narrow, and we saw the first of the red poppies<BR>
that would become more and more profuse each day we walked. Butterflies in<BR>
even more colors than the flowers were everywhere. Overhead we watched<BR>
hawks in reds, browns and whites, black vultures, and songbirds that passed<BR>
by so fast we could only glimpse their colors. Most of that day we looked<BR>
out over the Aragon River in its valley below us. For a half hour or more<BR>
our overhead scene included a whining small plane doing endless<BR>
loop-the-oops, outside rolls, vertical climbs, stalls and dives. And though<BR>
never saw the birds themselves, we heard cuckoos calling almost without<BR>
pause through that day and the next two. Imagination longs for walking such<BR>
spring days. <BR>
<BR>
About four-thirty we crossed the bridge at Puenta La Reina de Jaca (arches<BR>
of the medieval bridge bridge evident beneath a modern roadway; the bridge<BR>
had been widened to accommodate modern traffic, but trucks and buses made it<BR>
one way and a little anxious for walkers). We walked through the town and<BR>
up a hill on the other end of it to find the bakery where we bought bread,<BR>
local cheese, and some canned fish. Then we crossed back to complete our<BR>
walk to Arres. <BR>
<BR>
The last three kilometers seemed long, as final kilometers of a day often<BR>
do. We wound along a narrow trail on the shoulders of a fairly steep<BR>
hillside. The path twisted between scratchy low mesquite-like scrub and<BR>
Spanish broom that felt to me as though it were cheering us on. Finally we<BR>
rounded a turn in the path and Arres appeared a few hundred meters ahead, a<BR>
twelve-hundred year old village on a hilltop.<BR>
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