Arles
Ja grew increasingly exasperated every time we asked him if he knew of any wetlands, lakes, or wooded areas where we could see wildlife. Apparently there is little natural wildlife left in Europe. The running joke was that the French ate them all one hundred years ago. The reason we didn't see whales in the Mediterranean was the French ate them all a hundred years ago. The reason there were no squirrels in the riparian area around his house was the French ate them all a hundred years ago. Repeat for birds, fish, reptiles, and etc.
About the only thing the French hadn't exterminated were the wild pigs (sanglier). Ja said most French people were scared of them. A few times we heard them rooting around in the darkness eating the fallen plums.
Amanda had done some research and wanted to visit the Camargue wetlands a four hours drive west along the coast. We discussed meeting up with some friends a few hours North and another researcher who lived an hour away but in the end Ja decided we would drive and that he was coming with us.
We got up at 5:30 in the morning to pack for the trip. The drive was uneventful but all the highways in southern France are toll roads and we passed through 6 or more along the way. The tolls were random amounts and the toll machines often refused to recognize our credit cards or didn't work the first few times. Generally we spent about as much on tolls as we did on gas. It cost about 200€ to drive there and back (100 euros of diesel and 100 euros of tolls). A lot of the toll booths advertised some sort of fast pass technology but it was unclear what would work and Ja said when they asked other French natives about it they didn't know how it worked either.
We used Ja's GPS extensively in France where none of the streets are perpendicular and getting on the wrong road could cost you tens of euros in tolls.
Just inland from the Camargue is the city of Arles (where Van Gogh developed his distinctive style) and we stopped to pick up tourist information and explore the city. The city is built around an older walled Roman city with an ancient coliseum and they had posters up all through the town advertising an event running with the bulls every Mon, Wed and Friday in July and August.
We wandered through a huge street fair. It was like a whole shopping mall exploded onto the sidewalk. Many of the booths carried French comic books and a few had some interesting antiques. We sampled pig meat directly off the dessicated hoof and red, green, and blue cheeses (dyed with tomato, pesto, and lavender). One guy was selling homemade nougat and slicing off chunks from a huge block the size of a couch cushion which probably weighed 50 pounds.
The street fair was set on the sidewalk around the old roman wall that encompassed the central city. We ogled the old stone architecture, ate overpriced pizza outside, and decided to return at 5:30 to watch the running of the bulls in the colliseum.
Before we leaving the city we sat in a park outside the Roman quarter and ate a simple snack of meat and bread and two beers Ja bought in the city. One of the beers tasted of cigarettes and the other tasted of cheese.
The Camargue is known for it's mosquitoes but the wind was blowing so hard when we arrived they weren't a problem. People we spoke to a few days earlier said they'd been eaten alive.
There is nowhere on the coast to just stop your car and go to sleep on the side of the road. We had to go to a campground on the beach where we paid 40€ for a single night car camping with a hot showers, a Jacuzzi, swimming pool, changing rooms, convenience store, and other entertainment.
We parked under a mulberry tree and spent some time jumping up to collect them before Amanda and I wandered over to play on the teeter totter until a swarm of wasps came up out of the ground.
My feet were getting quite swollen and I started calling them my baked hams. (to this tune)
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After identifying our campsite we returned to the city and the ancient Roman coliseum to watch the running with the bulls. We still didn't have a clear idea what was going to happen as we shuffled into the arena and took a seat in the shade a few steps up from the ring.
While we waited a bored man came out and started spraying down the dirt arena. There was a 1.5m red wooden ring around the arena behind which there was a two meter gap to the railing where we were seated. There were several doors set in this wooden wall, hinged to open inward and wide enough they completely blocked the narrow passage on one side when open. And near the base of the wooden fence inside the ring there was a low step.
The bulls entered the arena on our right and the hinged doors set in each quadrant of the ring funneled any bulls that leapt over the railing back towards the entrance where they would re-enter the ring.
The exhibition featured ten young men dressed in white and ten bulls bred for speed. The bulls wore two colored strings tied around the base of their horns and one tied between the two horns. The men held small metal claws like a double ring over their middle fingers and the goal was to cut the strings from the horns while the bulls chased them down.
They were competing for money. The announcer kept up a continuous dialog about the bulls and the runners and the amount of money they would win if they cut a string. After close calls in the ring he would interrupt his commentary with short snippets of "Les Toreadores" from Carmen.
The men worked together to distract the bull and try to circle around and make it change direction mid charge. Usually the bull would attempt to chase someone down and the man would sprint to the red barrier, taking swipes behind him as he ran and leap up onto the wall, over the gap, and cling to the railing in front of the seats.
Running from the Bull 00:21 (5.3MiB)
A common strategy was for the men to line up on either side and alternately take turns racing diagonally towards the bull such that it grew distracted by each new runner and never built up enough speed to actually chase one down.
Each bull was let into the ring for ten minutes and the announcer would call out rising cash rewards when the men failed to cut any strings. There were two other men in and around the arena whose job it was to distract the bull when it grew fixated on the crowd. Other men carried spears with spiked crescent tips and we saw this design repeated throughout the city in billboards, artwork, and metal gates.
The bulls were all very aggressive, eager to run down every man in their path and some were faster or more burly than others. The crowd was impressed when a particularly muscular bull came out and attacked the wooden fencing but even though it was aggressive it wasn't fast and it didn't last long. Another bull had the men standing well back, unwilling to move closer despite the price on the strings. A few times the men never got close enough to cut anything and when that happened the speakers blasted Carmen and the audience cheered for the bull as enthusiastically as they did the runner.
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The bulls really wanted to gore the men and the running was dangerous. Pretty regularly the bulls would follow the men up over the low wall into the chute that ran around the arena. When this happened all the spectators would leap out of it's path (sometimes running out into the ring), hide behind bull blinds, or climb the walls up into the stands. The concern for safety is much lower in France. There were small children sitting in booths just above the run and as the bull thundered past they would hold out their shirts or hands to try to touch it's horns.
One of the runners cut his hand on a piece of exposed metal as he vaulted over the barrier. He already had two broken(?) fingers taped straight. Later, he dropped his claw while leaping over the fence and it bounced off the head of a small child sitting in the stands. Another man tore the crotch of his pants and did more than half of the match with his underwear showing.
The bulls also received some minor injuries. They picked up superficial cuts from the metal claws and a few had to be prodded with spears when they refused to leave the corridor behind the arena wall. A couple leapt back and forth over the wall so many times they grew exhausted and got caught half way in the ring with the wall pressing into their stomach. One fell on it's side on the concrete and another bumped his face and had blood running out of his nose.
When the bulls refused to leave the arena they brought in cows with bells to entice them to herd together.
You can get a sense of the sport from the videos. It was entertaining and certainly more humane than regular bullfighting. In the cromargue and throughout arles we saw statues and pictures of great bulls and leaping men and the spiked crescent motif decorated buildings and was painted on posters. We saw no images of men getting gored and I wondered how often it happened. I found this interesting description of the sport online.
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After the match we wandered around the coliseum. The coliseum was in the process of being restored and there was all sorts of hidden passageways, dead ends, and steep stairs.
When we got back to the campsite, the wind had died and the mosquitoes were out in force. Amanda and I put up a two man tent and Ja slept in the car. Though we went to bed early, every bar in the small beach town was full of people and live music.
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