Playing with Wild Ponies in the Pyrenees

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& Braving the Beaches at Capbreton

It's probably fairly obvious by now that I tend to be attracted to the "weird and wonderful" category of activities. The more unusual, the better. One could presume that this is because I am easily bored, but that's simply not true. The truth is there is a large part of me that would be content to do nothing but sit home, read, write and surf the internet. I came to realize, fairly early, that while being a coach potato for 3 months running is fun, and a great way to become completely immersed in the trials and tribulations of soap opera land, it is not terribly healthy. For me personally, that is because the more I stay at home the more likely I am to continue staying at home. And when I stay home all the time, I eat total crap. So, as I am trying to prolong the inevitable giddy fun of heart surgery (Dad had a quintuple by-pass), it is better for me to pry myself away from the Velcro like hold of the computer and DO something occasionally.

The conundrum I face is finding things to do that are interesting enough to compete with the siren call of YouTube or re reading H.P. Lovecraft's "Lurking Fear" for the fiftieth time. Once out of the house, I am fine and happy. The problem is just finding that necessary impetus to leave in the first place. When you have work or school, you have a built in reason, but if you are on vacation, or you work from home, or you don't work, then a rationale for being "outward bound" can be hard to find. So, I created a few mental tricks to get me moving. The first is simply the act of planning an outing. I love to get on the computer and research things. I love planning things. And so, in most cases, this provides the impetus needed. If I plan a trip, then I have to go on it. The second little mental trick is to find at least one thing, however small, that is extraordinary or unusual about the place you are visiting. This provides just that a little additional impetus that will ensure that I will get my butt in gear. . And viola, goodbye couch potato.

However, this past weekend, I actually didn't need any extraneous rationale for getting out of the house, as we had the third full proof way to force one out of one's abode, that being relatives. And no, that is not in the sense of fleeing from them, although now that I think about it that can work too. No, this time it simply meant visiting relatives. You see, last November, we had visited Julien's Uncle Remi and Aunt Danielle in the Saint Vincent de Tyrosse in the South west of France. The kids had a great time, particularly Seb, who I swear remembers Remi and Danielle from his infancy. So after we left that time, we made a point to book tickets for another visit in March. Thus, when March rolled around, we already had our travel plans sorted out. As this was a visit with relatives, I didn't do my usual research on "things to do" because we were there to visit with them. Personally, I hate it when people come to "visit" me somewhere and then spend time doing everything else but visiting with me. Call me selfish, but if you are visiting me, I should see you more often than simply at dinner time when you come back to my house to feed.. If you just want a place to stay, say that up front. It avoids misunderstanding and hurt feelings. So I try not to do that to other people. End of tirade. But, given that we were staying with relatives, I wasn't really expecting to do much besides the basic eating, movies, playing sort of kid friendly activities. But when we arrived, I was surprised to the point of being astonished. It turns out that Remi had already planned out options of interesting things to do. And all of them sounded extraordinary, and included the option of trains, beaches, horses, and countries. In the end, we chose beach and horses.

Playing with Wild Ponies in the Pyrenees

On the day after we arrived, Remi loaded me, Julien, and the kids into the car, and we headed off in search of adventure...which in this case meant Spain. Our goal was to track down the wild ponies, called Pottoks, that live in the Pyrenees Mountains in Basque Country. On the way, we planned to buy some groceries at the border and then have a picnic lunch somewhere in the mountains before going in search of the said ponies.

The journey to the border was amazing in and of itself. We were driving through "Basque Country". I won't go into great details about this, as I am largely ignorant about it but from what I ascertained from Remi (given my abysmal French) , the region is very distinct from either France or Spain. The houses we saw on the way were beautiful and all of them were white with either red, green or blue as embellishments. Apparently this is because these colors were easier to make. The red came from ox blood, the green from plant material. No one was really sure where the blue came from, but Remi suspected shells or sea creatures. We did a quick driving tour through one village, called Espelette. It is famous for its red peppers, which adorn all the buildings. We also did quick tours through a few other villages, all of which were charming and had an interesting "feel" to them. I made a mental note that I wanted to come back to this region to spend a few days. It is abundant with natural beauty of the "Laurel Ingles running down the hill" variety, so there is a lot of play opportunities for the boys. There also seems to be a unique mythology and pantheon here that includes a pre-Christian goddess named Mari, genies, and a trickster god named San Martin Txiki (pronounced "cheeky"). On top of that, there are also quite a few musical type festivals. So, we will definitely return, maybe in the summer. But I digress again....

When we got to the grocery store at the border between France and Spain, we were quite lucky, as strawberries seemed to have just come into season here. This means we had a fruit that both boys would deign to consume. So we loaded up with strawberries, ham and some local cheese that I bought from the nice man who produced it and was selling it in the store. We stopped at a beautiful picnic area, which had a seriously stunning view of the mountains...and then stuffed ourselves. The boys took 45 minutes or so to run it off, which meant we took 45 minutes or so to chase them as they were running it off. After multiple pictures taken from multiple photo op locations, we crawled back in the car and set out in search of ponies.

On our way up the mountain, Remi gave us a bit of history on these "petite cheval". I supplemented this via my Iphone and Wikipedia. What emerged was a fascinating story. The Pottoks are wild ponies that are native to the Pyrenees in France and Spain, and have lived in the area for at least several thousand years. They are small and short with round bellies and short little legs. In the winter they have a thick furry coat called a "borra". In temperament they are rugged but gentle. Genetic research done by the University of the Basque Country has shown that the Pottok and the Basque Mountain horse are genetically most deviant from your average "normal" horse. Some scientists believe that these horses were the ones that have been depicted in early cave paintings. This definitely qualifies as "weird and wonderful". Just as an fyi, the Pottoks do roam wild and forage for themselves, but they all have "owners" who round them up annually and the re-release them into the wild.

We didn't say anything to the boys about looking for ponies, as we were afraid that they would be disappointed if we didn't find any. But no worries! Remi found just the right curve of the road, and viola, there was a small white Pottok seemingly just waiting for us. She was tiny but very round and obviously pregnant. We stopped the car right next to her, and she came up to the window and stuck her little nose up to it. At this point, we got out of the car quietly. Remi had brought some bread to feed the ponies if we found them. So he got it out and we spent a good 10 minutes feeding and petting this adorable little animal. At one point I asked Seb, do you want to pet the pony?. He responded, in very Seb style, "Not pony. Unicorn". Hmmmm, he may have hit on something there. I must admit the intelligent face of the Pottok and its white fur could very well belong to a unicorn. Just before we hit the point where we were annoying her, we left this little mother with a large chunk of bread and headed further up the road. Just around the 3rd bend, we encountered a whole herd of Pottoks. We got out of the car again, and found that the animals came right up to us. Some were shyer than others, but there were two dark brown ponies that glued themselves to us as we were the "bringers of the tasty white treat". . As we were about to leave, one palomino looking pony left the larger herd and walked over toward me with an air of determination. I assumed it wanted food, so I help up my hands to show that all the bread was gone. But the pretty little thing just came over and put her nose in my hand. I was once again taken aback by how much intelligence radiate from the faces of these animals. Somewhat wistfully, we made our exit and headed further up the mountain...this time in search of snow.

There are rare places in the world where you can go to the beach on one day, and then have a snowball right on top of a mountain the next, but this was one of them. When we made it to the top of one of the mountains, we had a breathtaking view of the mountain range in general. We also had slushy melting snow that was just the right consistency for making snowballs. For a 5 year old, there is no question how this will end. The ensuing snowball fight lasted for 30 minutes or so with lots of running, splashing, ducking and laughing. Julien, Remi and Lucas were fairly worn out at the end. I had immunity because I was the camera woman. Seb was spared as he was mid nap in the car.

Both boys slept on the drive back to Remi and Danielle's place after having a long but gloriously eventful day. And later, after a wonderful dinner, they again slept the night through. A close to perfect family day.

Braving the Beaches of CapBreton

The next day was three of our visit and our last day there. So, we decided to head out to the beach at Capbreton. For the boys, it was the second time, as they had come in the late afternoon of our first day there. On that occasion, I had opted to take a nap at the house. Yes, Yes, I know it was lazy but sometimes a girls got to do what a girls got to do. But I got my chance to do the "beach" thing this time.

The beach itself comes with a bit of trivia and history. It is located on the Bay of Biscay and is apparently becoming hip with the surfing crowd. It also has an interesting estacade, which was built by the emperor Napoleon III during 1858. Apparently the emperor was quite fond of this area. But this sort of thing mattered not to my boys. It was a BEACH, and it happened to be a beach with a rock wall on one side and a gigantic mound of sand on another (who knows why). For two boys, this is more than enough.

For the adults what was nice, and unfortunately unusual, was that this seemed to be an unspoiled beach. It was lacking in the garbage, tacky memorabilia, snow cone vendors and dog poop that I have come to associate with public beaches. Also, Capbreton is not a stone beach or a pebble beach, like you often see in the French villages on the Mediterranean side. It is a "proper" beach with miles and miles of fine sand. In addition, there is the aforementioned rock formation that provided shelter for the sort of things that like to live in rock formations. Boys + creepy crawlies = Nirvana Achieved. Unfortunately, it also provided the only downside to this beach, in terms of kid friendliness. Lucas, at age 5, had enough sense to climb carefully over the rocks and to take his time. He played on them a bit, but he has fallen often enough to know a potential threat to good times when he sees it. Seb, on the other hand, is 2. This means he walks, he runs, but he has no brain. I spent a good deal of time coercing him down from the rocks. So, once, I sort of let him get lowered in between two rocks where he got stuck. (Am I a mean Mom or an instructive Mom? 6 of one, half dozen of another). After about a minute of "maaaaaamaaaaaa" I got him out. Not surprisingly, after this he was content to play on the sand. Lesson learned. He also rediscovered the humongous pile of sand, which he referred to as "Slide", and spent a good 45 minutes climbing it and sliding back down. Actually, in truth,, he himself climbed up it only couple of times. He then demanded that Papa help him up. Julien racked up some "good Dad" points with Seb on this one.

One of the hardest parts about going to the beach with kids is getting them to leave it (is there a theme emerging here?). But I managed a sneaky way to get around this this time. When Lucas insisted on playing a game of "Simon says", I saw my chance. As it was getting near time to go, I carefully timed the moment when I "messed up" and had to be "Simon". At that point I said, "Simon says let's go to the car". They were just baffled enough by this to plod back to the car without the usual, "Moooom, I want to stay" or "No no no no no... go plage" outbursts. Ah, a new trick to add to my kid arsenal. By the time we made it back to Remi's, both kids were hungry and tired, which is the reason you take them to the beach in the first place. Lunch was then eaten and naps were taken. And after that we packed ourselves up and headed off to the airport for our flight back to Paris.

Learning from this Trip

It should go without saying, and yet I always seem to forget, that the locals know more about your destination than you do. Last night I was walking down Saint Dominique in Paris and had the unfortunate luck to be walking in front of two twenty something girls who were tourists... of the obnoxious variety. They were congratulating themselves over knowing more about a particular aspect of Paris than one of the Parisian's they had met. I won't go into details, I will only say that they were wrong. So they came off looking not only ignorant but also pompous. Great combo. For anyone traveling anywhere, you should assume that the locals ALWAYS know more than you. It may not always be true, but 99 times out of 100 that assumption should be spot on. On this vacation, we would never have found such wonderful and extraordinary things to do without the guidance of Remi and Danielle. The fact that Remi took the time to act as a guide made it possible for us to completely let go and just enjoy the whole experience.

So, while we were lucky and had relatives in the area, it does not mean that you can't learn from locals in other ways. The internet provides a wealth of opportunities to benefit from the experience of locals. And in so far as this region is concerned, there are a plethora of hotel and even hostel options, if you should chose to want to visit. And I would highly recommend it. It is only a 4 hour train ride from Paris, so it is doable in a weekend.

So, as I said before, the Delorme family WILL be going back. Perhaps to stay in Espelette. Or maybe San Sebastian. Provided, of course, that I can get myself off the internet 😊

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