Torro Torro!!!
With the feeling of the big city pressing down on us we decided to hop a bus to the city of Santa Fe de Antioquia; a town founded in the mid 16th century and the original capital of the Antioquia region…before the big brother of Medellin took the title away about 50 yrs ago. This really is one of those story book Spanish Colonial pueblitos that you either love or hate…I love them by the way.
So first impression is this place is really fucking hot and the sun actually stings as it hits your face or the back of your neck. It turns into a constant game of running from shaded spot to shaded spot. Christie cannot take the heat so she retreats to our hospedaje to nap while Greg and I continue to wander around. Within 3 hours we have seen pretty much every square block of the city and our left to our favorite activity of people watching. I should also mention that at this time of year every town is having their annual Fiesta to celebrate the Christmas Season (not holiday season but straight up Catholic birth of Jesus Partying) which equates to booze and random fun.
Well random fun in this town equates to bull fighting…or so I was able to ascertain something was going to happen with bulls in this haphazard bambu (how they spell bamboo down here) coral. Greg and I saddle up to the outside of the ring and realize every spectator sitting on the fence rails is a child. Where are the men? Then every man in the town starts clambering into the ring of bambu to face the bull? I am wondering what the hell kinda bull fight this is as they are all taking heavy pulls from bottles of Ron (rum). Bull fight right? Well sorta. All of a sudden a 10 piece brass noisemaking group starts wailing away and next thing we know it’s actually a game of run away from the bull. Every guy jumps for his life onto the railings to avoid this really pissed off bull. The nonsense continues on for another 5 minutes until the bull starts to get tired (this is no real fighting butll) at which point every drunk becomes an inebriated matador. Waving beer adds, their hats or whatever they can to elicit a laughing “ole” from the crowd as they bravely dodge an exhausted bull. Well one old man took the cake b/c he was constantly tacking upwind the entire time he was so piss drunk yet he actually had a cape and was earning the loudest cheers; though i wonder if it was b/c he was the visibly most drunk person in the entire town. Eventually he did fall down facing the bull but was rescued by fellow friends dragging him away by the wrist. Just hilarious is all i could say…here is our hero:
after the excitement of the bull bonanza wore down it was back to wandering from shade spot to shade spot loving the old architecture and having to remind ourselves this was Colombia and not a movie.
OLE!!! chirp chirp
Tags: Colombia, South America, Travel
dirtcricket
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