Wednesday, 10/4: Today we make our way to O Pino, a small village on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela. It is a very short distance through primarily forest. As our pictures and videos have shown, Spain has a lot of forest. My initial research indicates about half the country is considered forest and of that 70% is privately owned and the balance is publicly managed forest. Since we left Castilla and Leon, we have seen an increasing number of reforested sections.
Specifically since entering Palas de Rei we’ve seen a number of Eucalyptus plantations. As we meandered through the backroads today we encountered a two-man team from a lumber company clearing a section of the Eucalyptus plantation and it was fascinating to watch how effectively this equipment cleared and cut the lumber.
Made me think of how sometimes to see the forest through the trees one has to strip the situation to its bare minimum and cut it into manageable segments.