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Aigues Mortes, French Cowboys and the Camargue Marshlands in Languedoc, France
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I had never heard of Aigues Mortes but since it was located in the middle of the Camargue marshland reserves, we decided to visit it. The town turned out to be a Medieval fortified city dating back to the 1200s. Today it caters to the tourists but the ramparts are still interesting to see. You have to pay and go through the museum to walk on the walls so we didn’t do that. But we did take a boat ride on the canals, which included a stop to see a demonstration of the Camargue French cowboys round up the typical-of-the-region black bulls with the famous white horses. The horses are a rugged bunch with hooves so hard they don’t need horseshoes. They start out in life black and turn white when they’re four or five years old. The breed has existed in the area since prehistoric times. They might be descendents of the extinct Soutré horse, whose bones (dating from 17,000 years ago) have been found in southeast of France. Horse images in Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux in Dordogne give evidence of Prehistoric horses in southwest France.
The young bulls are each given a name when they’re born and are branded with that name. When being rounded up, their names are used to identify one from the other and apparently some recognize their names and respond (so we heard).
Anyway, the horse and bull round-up demonstration was entertaining and it was interesting to see the horses perform their magic.
