Our last stop before the hotel last night was a place called Camp Celtique. I believe it was one of the earliest sites we have visited so far, approximately six thousand years old. The dominant feature of Camp Celtique is a low rock wall, leftover from the fortification of a Celtic settlement. However, my group-mates and I stumbled upon (or into, rather) a thriving civilization almost as impressive as the one that must have existed those many millennia ago--a colony of black ants. Early on the trail, we began spotting the little foragers climbing trees and scouring the leaf-strewn ground. They were easy to overlook at first, but as we progressed into the forest, the ant-concentration began to grow. Rapidly. Before long, we came to a halt in a section of the road flooded with ants. Their movement was an audible murmur in the grass, a sort of pitter-pater not unlike raindrops in a forest canopy. The ants went about their work--harvesting grain, chartering territory, hauling sticks to and fro--oblivious of their onlookers. I couldn't help but draw a connection between the ants and the lost Celtic people who built their community in a state of similar oblivion, not knowing that tourists from another continent would be oohing over their craftsmanship six thousand years later.
-M. Miles
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