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shepherds in wool cloaks watched over scattered flocks. We passed one man perched on a rock, staff in hand, turban wound tight against the morning chill. He didn’ t wave, just nodded slightly, a gesture with more weight than a dozen hellos.
The villages along this stretch are built into the folds of the hills, earthen homes with flat roofs and blue doors, as if someone had pressed them there with their thumb. We stopped often, sometimes to give the Docker a rest, sometimes because the scent of baking bread or the distant rhythm of a hammer drew us in.
In one such village, a carpenter worked beneath a fig tree, surrounded by curls of cedar shavings. He made doors, plain and arched, for homes that may not lock
TRAVERSE 54