Welcoming Woods
The evergreens above San Juan de Ortega.
The forest of pine trees surrounding San Juan de Ortega are rejuvenating in their cool calmness and refreshing atmosphere. The track through them is dirty, and can be muddy, but it brings you closer to the earthy aura that pervades these woods. Unlike some other denser woods one passes through on the camino, the feeling of spooky foreboding does not exist. Only a rush of energy and an exhilarating sense of rebirth permeates.
The muddy track through the pine forest outside San Juan de Ortega.
As you move down the hill through the town of Ages and toward the ancient Atapuerca, a UNESCO World Heritage site where the earliest remains of human beings in Europe have been found, the way becomes spacious, drier, and wide open. Because the forest behind was so enervating, one does not begrudge this new climate — being previously so energized. …And it somehow makes poetic sense, moving from the ancient pine wood imbued with such a spirit of life into the flatlands of the primitive beginnings of civilization in the vast Sierra Atapuerca.
Ruins outside of Atapuerca.