In the Camargue

Woke up for a nice big hotel buffet breakfast (slept in a bit and were the last ones to eat!). Then we headed off to the Camargue, a big national park (swamp area). We managed to see warthogs, FLAMINGOS!!, lots of other birds, a couple of bulls and maybe some wild horses (not sure). Thankfully the wind kept the mosquitos away. Steve decided that it was better to risk his bladder exploding than to use the horrible bathroom at the Parc Ornithologique.

We had planned to do some more biking when we got to Sainte Marie de La Mer, but that turned out to be almost as disastrous as the our first cycling adventure in Alsace. We were biking right next to the sandy beach, and it was sooo windy that a thick layer of sand had blown on to the path, making the biking pretty difficult. On the way out, the wind pushed us along and we didn't even have to pedal... nice... but on the way back, the opposing wind was so bad that there were a few times when Christina would pedal without moving forward at all... it was that bad. We also had the sand blowing in our eyes, our mouths and ears, yummy.

We returned the bikes and were about to head to our B&B for the night, when we passed by a small parade of musicians entering a building -- it turns out we were right next to a small bull-fighting arena, and an event was about to take place! The event was a 'Course Camarguaise', a game where the young men in the ring try to grab ribbons that are attached to the bulls head as he charges them (much more humane than a real bullfight anyway!). The whole thing was fairly daring, and we got some good videos of it, including when the bulls decided to jump over the fence and out of the arena and had to be coaxed back in!

We spent an awful 45 minutes trying to find our way to the B&B given terrible directions and a general lack of useful road signage. Argh!

Hours of walking: 4

Hours of biking: 2