Skip to main content

The Life of A Peruvian 'Pastor'?

 Would it be necessary to go out to the van and dig out the Mr. Heater BigBuddy -- in August? Maybe so. I have adapted to brutal sunlight and aridity. Hopeless drought has become normal. And now it was foggy and cold. Did it even reach 50F today?

Late in the afternoon, after a day of much needed rain, the sky brightened up a bit. The best way of avoiding cabin fever is to take advantage of these little breaks in the weather by going out for a walk. Coffee Girl certainly appreciated that.

I heard a human voice close to my trailer. Who could be in this neighborhood, now? Outside a man was walking by with three dogs: two Australian shepherds and a Great Pyrenees. He said something about "caballos," Spanish for horses. But it seemed like some of his words were English.

He, five horses, and three dogs overlapped our walk a couple times. We were too far away to talk, but we exchanged friendly waves of the hand. 

One of the horses had a bell, un cencerro, which made quite a bit of noise as they struggled to run through the sagebrush. Soon they were two ridges away from me, at a time when the fog wouldn't let me see one ridge away.

How clear that bell was! It was like hearing the horn of a ship that is somewhere out there in an ocean's fog.  

(For those who have seen the movie, "Rob Roy," think of that scene when the bad guy was chasing Rob Roy in the foggy highlands of Scotland. What a marvelous piece of work by the "Teleplay" writer and the cinematographer.)

Would he turn out to be another Peruvian shepherd? I met one once near Richfield, UT.

Another time, a 'vaquero' chases some cows in the high country


Comments