Amateur Bull Fight. San Andres, Ecuador
It is Sunday, which means it is time to go to “the bulls,” and in preparation, many of the townspeople have become quite “borracho,” or drunk. To some degree, for this kind of thing, alcohol is requisite. Anyone can participate, but most people are content to watch. “It’s funny, but dangerous,” Sandro says over my shoulder, checking to see that I am having a good time. “Dangerous, but a lot of fun.” Sandro is the desk clerk at the hotel I live in, and he has invited me from the capital of the province to see how the country people have fun. I am in a rickety middle-ages-style wooden construct surrounding a square arena of sparse grass and mud in the pueblo San Andres, in Ecuador. I am familiar with games country people will play when they get really bored, but this is completely new.
This isn’t a real bullfighting arena, which is appropriate, because it turns out this isn’t a real bullfight. For one thing, the bull doesn’t get hurt. Actually, it is more like a karaoke bar/rodeo. The townspeople show up and start drinking until they muster the courage to go out and taunt a bull in the arena. The concept is simple, almost quaint. Meanwhile, the onlookers watch and clap, shake their heads, or gasp.
As the night goes on, people get drunker, and more ambitious, while the bulls get larger and fiercer. The amateur “toreros” venture further from the wooden fence where they cling to escape the horns of the flustered bull, and jump around, throwing things, always ready to flee when things get hot. Some of the bull taunters are more experienced and use red flags to mislead the bull, but even they won’t mess with a big bull for long, leaving their red cloth flying in the dust behind them in a last ditch effort to confuse the bull in the race for the fence. An expert evasion warrants clapping.
Vendors walk in and out of the arena, apparently experts in avoiding the danger, selling the Ecuadorean equivalents of chips and beer nuts to the spectators: fried bananas, dried and sweetened corn kernels. One drunk man invites spectators into the arena. Young boys stick to the corners, wanting to show their bravery, but never taking any big chances. That is what the drunks are for.
“Watch out! Careful!” shout the spectators to one oblivious borracho, who has noticed the bull five crucial seconds later than the bull noticed him. He takes two quick steps toward the fence, but is carried the rest of the way—a good fifteen to twenty feet—on the head of the fiercest bull of the afternoon. His face takes on the look of panic, with his eyes half open, and he goes into survival mode, curling up into a ball as the bull drops him to the ground and prods at him for a few seconds.
The spectators gasp and put their hands over their mouths as people on the side shoot out their arms to pull in the victim and distract the bull. The rustled borracho’s eyes open wide with shock as he rolls over in order to get up. His friends rush to his side to survey the damage as he gets up and takes another swig from his water bottle full of sangria, the bull rushing the circumference of the arena, where the hands of spectators protrude until he roars past. The drunk man escaped without a scratch, but his jeans have a large tear. Finally, his friends decide to pull him out of the arena, where he seemed content to continue wandering in company with the bull which potentially could have just killed him.
No one wants to see anyone become badly wounded, just tossed about a bit. For this reason, the little bull with the stubby horns is a welcome addition to the mix. Apparently, people are much more amenable to a goring by this bull, which Sandro calls, “the bull for the women.” Consequently, of all the bulls, this bull comes in contact with the most flesh, and out of several collisions, there is still no sight of blood or injury. This is the family segment of the show, and also one of the most entertaining.
The cowboys, who have rounded up these bulls from the countryside and hauled them to the arena, come out with their large lassos. Once hooking a bull around the neck, the show gets another twist, as the bull hurls himself around the ring violently, at times crashing into the fence, or hurling itself to the ground, while its tongue hangs out. The crowd of braves and borrachos quickly muster sobriety at this time, and the children inch away from the outer fence.
Suddenly, there is a commotion behind us, and some young men run out of the arena toward the scene faster than they run from bulls. I hear conjecture around me that a bull has gotten loose on the outside of the arena and that some fights have broken out. It turns out to be a fight between some drunks, and this seems to be more of a spectacle in the countryside than a bullfight and a soccer game combined, which is truly saying something.
As the sun starts to go down, we crawl back down the wooden ladders of the Middle-Ages-style Colosseum to the perimeter, where food vendors brew soups in large pots and fry potatoes on gigantic pans, along the dirty mud roads and walkways. Many have difficulty walking. A man in front of me gets a face-full of dirt. His companions barely flinch.
In the end, five bulls got their chance in the arena to take out their frustrations on the pesky humans, one at a time. The people come out smiling as if emerging from the cinema on a Sunday afternoon, and go back to their daily lives, slowly, one at a time, until next Sunday, when it is time to return to the bulls. Meanwhile, home videos of the event are being spliced into blooper reels with voice-overs of the Ecuadorean equivalent to Bob Saget, to be distributed in video tiendas across Ecuador.
Tags: bull fight, Travel
Aaron Baldassare