Travel
Walk, don’t run
by Tim Watkin
The French version of the running of the bulls is all brass bands and bonhomie.
It sounded sedate enough: La Marche de Vaches, we had heard it called – the walk of the cows. Nothing like that hurly-burly in Pamplona. This event, a highlight of the annual Fête de Bayonne, seemed to be a chance to experience a bit of Basque culture without enduring hordes of drunken backpackers and worrying about suffering inflicted on livestock.
Yet, sitting in the stands encircling the Place Paul Bert, under a sun that could melt the black spots off a friesian, we realise that this is actually the Course de Vaches – the running of the cows.
The five-day festival attracts a million people to a town whose usual population is 44,000. The streets in the centre, restricted to pedestrians, are clogged with crowds eating, drinking and tapping their feet to the music from the bandas – small brass bands that perform on street corners. Almost all festival-goers are dressed in red and white, the colours of Basque nationalism. A red kerchief around the neck is standard. The few dressed differently look out of place.
As ushers urge late arrivals to choose between the stands behind the high metal fences and the bonhomie in the square, a single cow – large, horned and clearly startled to find itself in the middle of a baying throng – enters the ring. The Course de Vaches, it turns out, is a cross between the running of the bulls and a bullfight. The cow runs, but only around the enclosed square, where several hundred wannabe matadors, many somewhat the worse for sangria, try to provoke it or – the supreme challenge – to leap on its back.
The chaos is punctuated by long stalemates as crowd and cow try to work out how far to push each other. The bewildered beast stands eyeing its opponents, until instinct – terror or hope of escape – prompts it to charge and the crowd parts.
The brave or foolhardy stay close, others shamelessly leap onto the railings shouting and squealing. But in contrast to Pamplona, the people do most of the running.
Where they find the energy to charge around in the heat I really can’t say. The Bayonne Festival is a day-and-night event, but the emphasis is on night. Bars and restaurants spilling out onto the street are packed with revellers at all hours. The party doesn’t really begin until 10.00pm when King Leon, a three-metre-high blow-up doll with blond hair and a purple outfit, rises on the balcony of the town hall. An ancient Basque hero? No, a party mascot less than 10 years old.
Next comes the mascaleta, or fireworks display, and the festival has begun. That means some serious drinking and, for a handful of young guys, the chance to jump onto statues, fountains and even cars. For all the high jinks, the mood never feels unsafe. Families feast at tables and middle-aged men toot tubas late into the night.
The Fête de Bayonne began in 1932 as an attempt to mimic the success of the cousins in Pamplona. But it retains a local feel that the Spanish town lost years ago. That’s not to say tourists aren’t welcome – the city is marketing the festival aggressively.
Bayonne, a beautiful cathedral city at the junction of two sleepy rivers, began life as a Roman outpost and earned the motto “never tainted” for staying loyal to France and surviving 14 sieges. It is also the capital of French Basque country. Red, white and green flags are hung with pride and more than a few people wear T-shirts with the legend “4 + 3 = 1”, the numbers indicating the Basque provinces in Spain and France that secessionists want split off to create a Basque homeland. But the French Basque country knows none of the violence that exists in the politically autonomous Basque region of Spain.
No one knows for certain where the Basques came from. They were well established around the Pyrénées and Bay of Biscay when the Romans arrived. Some say they’re Europe’s oldest inhabitants. They also played a significant part in the founding of California, coming for the Gold Rush but staying to employ their livestock skills and set up some of the West’s first ranches.
If only the young men and handful of women in the Place Paul Bert had such skills. Half of them are just standing, even sitting, in groups, chuckling as cows come and go, one at a time. Just before a new cow is released, the runners form two lines both sides of the gate and sing songs. Some lie on the ground as an act of bravado, but scatter quickly when the gates fly open.
In all, six cows are released, each one enduring around 10 minutes in the crowd. On a few occasions a serious runner gets outside the cow’s line of sight and leaps on its back. The crowd cheers. A couple of times people mistime their runs, and are butted away, landing heavily. Although we can’t see from a distance whether blood was spilled, more than once horns appear to catch those who drift too close and paramedics tear into the square and carry off the wounded. Sorry though we felt for the cows, they seemed to give as good as they got.
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