Descending from the mountains

Waking up at 6am. Getting on the bus at 6:30. We're at 2000m up. Mountains all around us. The sky is blue and clear, just bright enough to be starless. The moon which lit the way to the pub last night is long gone down. The peaks are still in shade. And then one distant rocky, icy triangle appears glowing and sunlit at its top. Gradually the higher summits are lit up as the sun creeps over the tops of the other mountains.

The bus descends. We all know how the Romans built straight roads, to defy nature and impose their human will on the landscape. Here in the mountains such behaviour would be stupid. You have to work with nature when it exists on this scale. Roads should follow the curves of the mountains and valleys. Occasionally man will build a tunnel, or a bridge, or some structure to help get us down the mountain, but in the main you work with the form of the land.

As the bus reaches the wide views of the lower hills, the sun is now up but applying its rays selectively. Round one corner is shade, and then its into bright sunshine. If there's no higher mountain in the way then the light floods through. From another angle, there's a peak that casts a huge shadow on a small village until late morning. And all this changes with the seasons.

By the time we reach the flatlands of the airport, the sun is high enough to shine on everything.