To an outsider, a national park called the Camargue in the south of France may come across as an obscure tribute to America’s Wild West. It’s quite the contrary, the culture there is as French as sipping a glass of red wine along the banks of the River Seine. Yet, this may take some convincing at first.
It is a flat terrain consisting of marshlands, where countless long reeds lapse over one another and collapse into half-hidden lagoons. Two branches of the Rhône river meet the sea and subsequently you’ll discover the second largest Mediterranean delta, after the Nile. The marshlands and the lakes account for a third of the region. There is flock after flock of...flamingos. I don’t think I could ever have named an exact country where you’d find the animals but really? France? Well, they’re there, I’ve seen ‘em. I appreciate this doesn’t quite sound like a place you’d find Clint Eastwood but bear with me. It is grasslands which hides one of France’s best-kept secrets. Hoards of bulls, semi-wild horses, an exclusive breed estimated to be one of the oldest in the world, and cowboys all living together and honouring centuries of tradition.
I was in the Camargue in the summer of 2019. It was a six-hour ‘safari’ tour in a Land Rover. A combination of sitting right in the back, rocking up and down along dusty roads and not understanding a great deal of French meant that many of the facts were lost on me in which the ranger was forever relaying. However, I was with my French girlfriend who would translate the ‘good stuff’ for me. Take, for instance, a farmer in the Camargue can call out the name of his bull and it’ll come along just like a dog. Is that more surprising than the flamingos?
In the Carmargue you feel the closest you’ll ever get to a mythical creature is the bull. This was made clear by the fact that the only time the ranger chose to speak directly to me in English was for them. He informed me that when the most prized bulls die they are buried in a standing position and even given a gravestone. Admittedly, I felt somewhat sceptical but a while ago I watched a documentary on the place and sure enough, the presenter went to a farming family who took a great time to stand by these graves and by their solemn faces you’d have guessed they were amongst lost siblings or parents. They are magnificent creatures to behold, like a lion lazing about in the Savannah, the bulls mooch around eating grass, rubbing up on one another but you are quite aware that these are undisputed kings in their kingdom, who can afford to look careless. The long-horned bulls roam freely, for the most part. Along the flat, straight roads, fences are erected. Sometimes, these bulls would take the time to escape, as if they wanted to remind the people that they’re not your usual dairy cow. It is no laughing matter, just a few years ago a German couple were cycling their way around France only to be mauled by an enraged bull. The man lost his life. The people of Southern France celebrate bulls during the summer. I’d think I’d like to save that for another article but let me stress that the most popular sport is NOT bullfighting and if you don’t want to wait for that article then you can search for
the Camargue Races.
If there isn’t a bull on your Grandparent’s postcard from the Camargue then there’s probably three white horses storming through the Rhône. As I said earlier, these horses are an ancient breed who are wedded to the region. They too carry a somewhat mythical aura about them. The ranger spoke just as enthusiastically and told us that many centuries ago a Northern aristocrat acquired these horses for military purposes but before they could be felled by arrows it was being outside their ancestral home which killed them. I couldn’t find anything about this online but I also can’t find much evidence to say that there is a significant population of these horses elsewhere. If a bull were to magically transform into a horse then this is probably what you’d get. They are the Popeye of horses. What is lost in height, bursts out in width and thick muscle. These stocky creatures are used to round up bulls, owners traditionally let them live in the wild with their mother for the first few months which gave me a greater sense of respect as I’d be terrified of trying to approach a wild Dartmoor pony.
Finally, there are the people. In Bill Bryson’s book, The Lost Continent, one thing he laments about America is how they never discovered a means to live within their parks. Instead, the authorities ‘enforced the wilderness’ and ‘eradicated’ an ancient way of life for many indigenous peoples. Bryson compared this with parks in Britain, understandably as he lives there, but had he visited the Camargue, I’d be willing to bet he’d switch the comparisons. The farmers dress in checkered shirts, Stetson hats, high leather boots and they all wear a cologne called ‘You’ll never be as cool as me’. Fair enough, I’m probably the only person aged under 25 who thinks they can bring back blogs and those guys deal with half tonne bulls (I’m not making up I have a girlfriend, I promise). Bryson writes about the cabins, once owned by hillbillies, which were destroyed. Whilst reading it, I didn’t care much for the cabins but now as I reflect on my time in the Camargue, I do understand his point. If you go, you’ll see plenty of odd looking buildings. They stand alone, their walls are of clay and they’re whitewashed all over. The thatched roofs are rounded off on the top with white stone as a means of protection against the wind. They come in many shapes sometimes, like an oval or a prism with a cone at the end. This is the humble abode of the guardian, shepherd or fisherman, whose raw materials echo the centuries of man and beast co-existing. Their presence deepens the character of the region and as your eyes flicker from the flamingos to the bulls, so too, will these houses demand your attention. I know the people of the region quite well, my girlfriend is a native and I have watched home videos of her as a little girl, feeding the white horses aided by her great-grandfather. They are of course very proud people who feel the region in their blood. I suppose one can understand, even a foreigner like me. The Camargue is like a strange portal from one continent to another. No wonder those poor horses died.
I apologise for the lack of photos. I didn’t manage to get many good ones so search for a sunset in Camargue on Google Images.