On the way out of Larasoana, there was this wonderful stretch where I was walking by myself through these beautiful, cool woods on a nice, soft, dirt path. Suddenly, there appeared before me a horse, all by himself. He seemed a little startled to see me, and a little shy, but not too afraid. This one, as opposed to the ones on the mountain, was full sized, built more like a draft or farm horse, but free to roam through the woods. He looked at me and then gave me no more thought as he walked up into a clearing. A moment or two later, another horse appeared in the fringe of trees along the path. Though it stayed in the trees, it was within perhaps four feet of me as I passed. Okay, here´s a secret - I talk to animals as I pass them: Buen perro! (Good dog!) Hola, Caballo! (Hello, horse!) Gracias, parajo! (Thank you, bird!) Buenas Dias, Gatito! (Good day, kitten!) Buenas Tardes, Vaca! (Good afternoon, cow!)
Call me Dr. Doolittle if you will, but I suspect deeply that they know and they do answer, whether I can really understand or not. So I talked to these horses which kept appearing in this sort of magical woods all along the trail. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them, because they kept catching me by surprise. If they were white and each had a horn coming out of their foreheads it couldn´t have felt more amazing and grace-filled. There are definitely times when I feel a little like Dorothy walking towards Oz on this trip. It is so awesome to me, in the best sense of that overused word, to be in the wild in the presence of another part of God´s kingdom, such as a horse roaming free, and to feel accepted by that creature. I loved being in that stretch of woods. 
I paused by a river (the same one that had the trout, I think) and just enjoyed watching it rush through the rocks and trees, the play of nature, one part with another. The music of the rushing water was wonderful. Later, I paused on a bridge into a village over the same little river for my mid-morning break to eat an orange, and again enjoyed the rush of water over rocks, looked for the fish, listened to the breeze in the trees that lined the banks...ah, nature!Today (June 2) as I'm writing this, we saw our first snake on the path, probably something akin to a garter snake, about four foot long and what looked to be non-poisonous. It ran away from us (Carmel and her son, Alex, from Halifax, Canada and myself) on our way to Los Arcos. I also saw one of the many falcons today, but haven´t had a chance to check the guide book to see which kind yet. There are lots of birds of prey here (kites, kestrals, falcons, hawks) and I can't really tell most of them apart, but I love watching how they ride the winds and swoop over the fields, searching for their meals.
Two nights ago, in Puenta La Reina, there was a stork (they're everywhere here!) nesting in the top of the dome of the church next to our alburgue. (The picture is actually the church tower in Belorado because the nests show up better.) There were some fledglings poking their little white heads up out the large, messy twig nest. Cuckoos have called in many places. I guess it's the influence of Monty Python, but I can't help imagining this big joke, where men in tights are always running around within a couple hundred yards of me in the woods or somewhere just out of sight, pushing around a huge cuckoo clock! I have a hard time believing they are real birds, I guess, but I understand they are not very nice as they take over other birds' nests and kick out their young to raise their own. That's not near as cute as they look on clocks! 
Yesterday, as I crossed over a river that is drying up (that according to the 14th century guidebook you aren´t supposed to let your horse drink from because the water is bad and it will kill your horse, and there are bandits waiting to skin your horse) there are frogs that sound just like sheep bleating. And not only do frogs sound like sheep, sheep sound like cows, because sheep wear cow bells here. Only I guess they are sheep bells. A day or two ago, I saw this amazing bug crossing the trail. The front of it was the size of the thorax of a large ant, but the back end was a good inch and a half long tapering, conical (like the twist of ice cream on a cone)in black and red. The bug just dragged this huge back end around with it wherever it went.
There are also lots of snails - the kind that become escargot, and people actually come out and collect them!White butterflies are everywhere, and some small orange ones and today I saw the most amazingly vivid, periwinkle blue one. No fireants, but they do have big gnats as of yesterday's walk.
There are wildflowers and cultivated flowers everywhere, some are familiar and some not. Hydrangeas, primrose, daisys, pink honeysuckle, purple thistle, something like tall, yellow buttercups and lots of orange and red poppies, and now just today, pink poppies. 
Then there are little white star shaped flowers, and lots of purple, pink, and blue flowers and yellow scrubby bushes. There are flowers everywhere!
Olive and almond 
trees are in groves lining the hills. And here in Navarra, lots of fields of vineyards, out of which they produce white and red wine (which is pretty good!)The weather has been cool and breezy, which has been great for walking. It is hard to resist taking a picture of every beautiful vista, and our pictures don´t really do them justice anyway. One of these days, I will be at a computer where I can share them with you!
I love this vision of the horse appearing out of nowhere! Definitely some sort of blessing, don't you think?
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