Trek and Yoga in the Ravine of Castellaneta

 

Have you ever tried to combine trek and yoga? Today I tell you about my experience in the Ravine of Castellaneta, where, thanks to Puglia Canyon experience, I made an excursion to reach a natural cave where we practiced yoga and reconnected with Mother Earth

I always suggest to make an excursion in the ravine to those who visit Terra delle Gravine (the Land of Ravines). I’ve gone on trek many times and have always found new things. Ravines are different from each other and each one has its own peculiarity. It also depends on which the aim of the excursion is.

Leggi in italiano

For example, if the aim of the trek in the ravine is to get into a mood of connection with nature that will culminate with a yoga lesson in a natural cave, here we have an original and immersive adventure on several levels.

I had the possibility to live this kind of experience thanks to Federica and Edo from Puglia Canyon experience, who organized the trek in the Ravine of Castellaneta joining it to a yoga lesson guided by Federica from Centro Yoga Surya of Castellaneta.

Now, let’s inhale, let’s listen to our breath, to the sounds of nature around us and let’s start our trek and yoga in the Ravine of Castellanta.

The Ravine of Castellaneta

As I wrote many times on the blog talking about these rocky veins, ravines are carvings, clefts grab over time by water. Actually, while walking you can find some fossil here and there that date back the period when these lands still were under water.

Nowadays, inside of them there’s a unique ecosystem  with a rich vegetation and our guide Federica tells it showing us local shrubs that are part of the Mediterranean scrub.

The vegetation of the ravine

Inhale and enjoy the scent of Terra delle Gravine! Thyme, chamomile, rosemary tickle your nose, while little local orchids and dandelions stain our path with purple and yellow.

Nature has always provided what men needed to live or to simplify their lives. Federica indicates some of the plants used the most in the past: we meet sorghum, used to produce brooms, mastic, used for oil (the poor used it for food, while the rich used it as lamp oil).

Sometimes we meet a carob tree and its fruit is also called the chocolate of the poor (actually, its taste really reminds chocolate flavor) and getting down in the ravine, we find plants of acanthus that you may remember for the decoration of Corinthian capitals, as we learn in school.

Fairy Flax

In this area of Puglia there’s a particular herb: long, light and fluffy, it seems to caress you while it waves under the breeze that blows over the ravine. It’s the stipa, also known with the name of Fairy Flax because of its silvery nuances when it’s in the sunlight.

This fantastic name comes from a legend. They tell that fairies came from Murgia to harvest this herb and sewed their light and silky dresses with it to dance under the moonlight.

Looking at these long silvery wires that bow and curl at the end like a whip, but more elegantly, it’s almost natural to believe to this legend.

The rupestrian settlements

Let’s continue our walk and get on the “lower floor”. Watching carefully our steps, we arrive in a cave. We’re in the rupestrian settlement of Santa Lucia. As many of the towns developed near the ravines, also Castellaneta has its rupestrian tradition and a history of caves used as dwellings and shelters.

These caves have stories to tell. Stories about men who worked to make them welcoming and livable, about those who fought for their own rights and for the weakest. Today we remember them visiting these places and telling their stories. Here Federica tells us the one of the brigand of Castellaneta, Antonio Locaso.

Antonio was a Lucan boy who came in Castellaneta to work as a shepherd. One day he saw a master on horseback killing a woman who had stolen some ears of wheat from the field, Seeing that injustice, Antonio beated the man and left him bleeding. Concerned about the consequences of his act, he ran away and got shelter in the caves of the ravine. At the end Antonio was betrayed by his fellows: he was arrested, killed and his corpse was exposed to the public for two days.

We go back on the edge of the ravine. A sea of yellow ears fills the horizon and coasts the edges of the path that guides us to our destination. The hot sun relaxes the skin, which few moments ago was tight for the humidity and the coolness of the caves.

The railway bridge, which at the beginning was far on the horizon, gets closer and bigger. We see another bridge, smaller, dirt road, a walking street. It crosses the ravine and connects the towns of Castellaneta and Palagianello, on the other side of the canyon. We take it and enjoy this beautiful walk, from which we have a unified and magnificent view of the ravine.

Now it’s a stone bridge, but once it was the old iron railway bridge. In the 30s Mussolini made it demolish to get the iron and made it build again with stone. The bridge itself tells it, with that “A/IX” on a pillar. It’s the construction date: ninth year, that is to say the ninth year of fascism.

If you like walking journey, it may be useful to know that the Cammino Materano passes from here. A nice walk with a breathtaking view, I’d say.

We’re nearly there, our destination isn’t far, actually we’re over it. This is the moment to use the ancient paths, the old little staircases, those used by the people who lived in the caves. It’s the moment to go down.

Yoga in the cave

We descend carefully, we venture in rocky cavities, an eye to watch our steps and the other to see the ravine out there, not to lose its majesty, its beauty.

We’re in the cave of the rupestrian settlement of Santa Colomba, in Palagiano, but always in the Ravine of Castellaneta. Some frames of medieval frescos, now invisible, and some tanks carved into the rock witness the life that once this cave saw.

We take our place, unroll the mat and we’re ready to reconnect ourselves with Mother Earth even more, to find again that link with our essence. What better place to do it if not in a cave, inside the element earth. And now, in peace, let’s start our yoga lesson in the cave.

After yoga lesson, in this atmosphere of newfound peace, before coming back, Federica surprises us with an unexpected and flavoured pause: a simple, yet invigorating coffee, complete with mocha and camping stove. It’s a ritual for them and they offer it at every excursion.

Now that body and mind are balanced, we take again the path and come back where we started. It’s been an unexpected excursion, with moments of discovery, listening  and reconnection. Combining trek and yoga is an unusual way to rediscover the nature around us and to get in touch with it at a deeper level. I highly recommend to try this experience!

If you want to know more about the excursion in the Ravine of Castellaneta and about the possibility to combine trek and yoga lessons, I invite you to get in touch with the guys of Puglia Canyon experience.

What do you think? Does the opportunity to combine two activities very different yet so alike as trek and yoga make you curious?