Corrida

Zacatecas, the city of first times for us: the Charreria, the rodeo, the visit to the mine and today the Corrida - no less. I will not go into encouraging such activities or the moral implications that is hardly regarded by some as a sport or entertainment for that matter. It’s something we’ll watch probably once in our lifetimes and today it is. As we enter the feria and the plaza de toros, we stumble across one of the three matadors of tonight’s corrida. Noemie even catches a picture with him! It’s said that Mexicans arrive on time for only two events – funerals and bullfights. Just on time, the ritual starts with the matadors, others who will assist, and the horses, well protected. We don’t know much about the rules or the order of things but this is how it goes: someone announces the name of the bull and its weight, the matador and three assistants (toreros) enter the scene and here comes the bull raging. The three toreros waive their cloths in front of the bull to get it excited in order to tire him, then hide behind the little facades for protection. The heavily padded horse makes an entrance and the bull immediately attacks the horse at which time the picadors jab long lances into the bull’s shoulders to weaken him. Later I realize the horse is blinded so as not to get afraid and run. At this point, I thought I was going to faint. It is quite unfair for the bull to get wounded deliberately and so early.

The horse gets out and the matador approaches the bull without the red cloth, but with two elongated darts (banderillas) in hands. In a second, he runs towards the bull, jumps and put the banderillas on the back of the bull. Quite dangerous for the matador… We’re seated just on the first row and the action is just in front of our eyes. The bull keeps on running and the matador attracts it with the red cloth for a while before putting in another pair of arrows, at which point the bull is bleeding and breathing heavily (nevertheless still very dangerous), painful to see and to hear from where we are. Blood is thrashing out of bull’s wounds but it keeps responding to the provocations of the matador, who throws his hat in the middle of the plaza before the final act.

The matador has exactly sixteen minutes to kill the bull. Starting with a fancy cape work to tire the animal, the matador then exchanges his large cape for the smaller muleta and takes sword in hand, baiting the bull to charge before delivering the fatal estocada with his sword. The matador must deliver the estocada between the shoulder blades from a position directly in front of the animal.

There is a band at the bleachers playing famous Spanish rhythms. The weather is just perfect, the audience cheers: Ole Ole! The matador is handed a fine sword from backstage and gets back to face the bull under the cheers of the public. Kneeling in front of the torro, the matador gets the bull moving again and avoids it with great skill, even touching it from time to time. You could feel the relationship between the matador and the bull evolving with each part of the corrida, some of the matadors talked to the bull to get it excited, others almost caressed it while passing close by, none of them showed pity at the end. In a lot of ceremonial moves and grace, the matador approaches and has to plant the sword in a special place, deep enough to paralyze the bull and kill it. Most of them succeeded from the first try as the bull is already quite incapacitated. Really an unfair match… When the first bulls come down to its knees and silently dies, I had a rush of tears which were successfully held back. It happened right in front of our eyes. This is it; three donkeys are brought in tied with the bull through a rope and pull it out of the arena in a matter of seconds. The matador salutes the public and receives flowers, hats and even shoes from the men and women in the public in a show of appreciation and recognition. While tissues are waived from the public, asking the matador to cut one of the ears of the bull, but none of them does it, thanks God, enough blood. A total of six bulls, ranging from 490 to 525 kilos found death at the hand of the three matadors. The Spanish matador showed a lot of skills and an imposing presence in the arena.

All in all, it is quite an impressive show with some disturbing moments but the tradition of this ‘sport’ is quite strong and provokes mixed feelings of glory and passion.

Tips:

Acropolis Restaurant: food is somehow tasteless.

The mine has the only night club in the world to be located at around 500 meters beyond ground level. We don’t get a chance to go but it sure is a nice setting and experience.