Turismo Natural

ROUTES: 2nd STAGE – REGIONAL MIGRATION (SAN PELAYO – LAS OMAÑAS)

May 14, 2010 Activities, Landscapes, Villages, Routes, Hiking, Traditions, Tourism, Tourism, Tourism León, Natural Tourism, Rural Tourism

Before I begin, I’d like to tell you that I shan’t name all the villages that we have passed through because they are quite a lot but they will be indicated in the map found at the end of this article.

If you were surprised in the 1st stage of the number of sheep that made up the flock, over 600, then imagine this stage with over 1000 sheep and walking along narrow village lanes…

The adventure continues!

Dawn is breaking and we are already on our way. There are many sheep, so the organisation has been thorough to ensure that everything goes well. Meanwhile, two Spanish mastiff pups play together, quite unaware of what will be, probably, their own future in a few years’ time.

The stage ahead, for me, is one of the hardest on a psychological level: monotonous landscape, very flat land…you always see a very similar horizon and you can’t perceive the end of the stage. It feels like an eternity, but this time it was different.

We set off and the first important place we pass is the Puente de Órbigo (Órbigo bridge), which owes its name to this bridge that dates from the 13th century and also known as Paso Honroso (honourable way).

Everything is going as usual for this first part of the stage, well…there was one male that had quite a high libido as you can see in the images, but they were like that every day! I say the first part because we shall make two stops over the day.

The first stop, soaked from the rain, is in Carrizo de la Ribera, where we will rest and recharge ourselves ready to continue.

We set off again until we reach the next stop, where we rest while the sheep graze. We all relax on this break, except for the mastiffs that are constantly on the watch.

We set off, and the weather threatens more rain and the stretch that we have left is the hardest.

This last stretch at the end was not so tiring thanks to two setbacks: on the side of the road where the sheep were, there was a canal and…you know what these animals are like: they start pushing one another and that means one or more sheep from among the 1000 sheep were going to fall into the canal; then, something that had never happened to the shepherd before: the sheep from the other flock met with ours. Thanks to the shepherd and his assistant, the sheep were rescued from the canal and the flocks separated.

We continue on until we reach the end of the stage.

The sun is setting and we reach Las Omañas, where we shall spend a cold night out in the open air.

Tags: Carrizo de la Ribera, Las Omañas, Mastiff, Spanish Mastiff, Nature, Landscape, Honourable Way, Sheepdog, Villages, Órbigo Bridge, Route, Routes, San Pelayo, Seasonal Migration, Regional Seasonal Migration, Tourism, Active Tourism, Natural Tourism, Rural Tourism