Ole!

So we went to a bullfight on Saturday and even though I´m anticipating getting some criticism by saying this I´m going to say it anyway:

I loved it.


The atmostphere, the colors, the fanfare, the whole thing was amazing.

Yes, it´s controversial and I can understand and respect people who think that it´s barbaric. I´m not going to try and convince anyone to like it or not-it´s not my place to do that. I also want to say that I´m not anti-animal rights or anything like that. I think that animals deserve respect and shouldn´t be tortured and so I´m hoping that after reading this people don´t think I´m some kind of sadistic, heartless animal hater. I´m not. My little disclaimer before I tell what I thought about it. :)

Before we went, I was thinking that I wasn´t going to like it, that it would be pretty gorey and just not my thing. It helped that in my culture class we learned about it and all the different aspects of it. The whys. Once you learn about something, it helps you not be afraid of it. For instance, they sell the meat after the bull is killed, so in a way, it´s just a glorified slaughter of an animal. And bull meat is very appreciated here-it´s quite expensive and the day after a fight people line up at the butcher shops that get the meat to buy some. Also, when the picador goes in to "weaken" the bull (the part that most people find to be the worst), he has been trained to hit a particular spot on the bulls´ neck that activates an adrenaline rush that helps counter the pain. He´s not just stabbing the bull randomly just to hurt it.

The fight we went to was actually for charity, so there were some slight differences from a regular fight. The main one was that there were 6 bullfighters. In a normal fight, there are 3 matadors and 6 bulls, but this time it was 6 matadors and 6 bulls. The second main difference was that since it was a festival, the matadors didn´t wear the traditional "traje de luces" and instead wore plainer outfits. I was kind of bummed about that but it was still cool though.


Granada´s Plaza de Toros (and the immense traffic jam in front as everyone was arriving)


A poster advertising the corrida we saw


My ticket


The bullring


The procession at the beginning when all the matadors and their "teams" present themselves to the officiator of the fight (the presidente)


We had the opportunity to see a rejoneador-you don´t get to see these at every fight. It´s a special type of bullfighting on horseback. Pretty impressive.


Preliminary phase of the fight when the strength of the bull is assesed.


The picador (he weakens the bull so that he doesn´t charge the fighter with as much strength)


A banderillero getting ready to put a banderilla (a hook with ribbon on it) in the bull. The banderillas make the bull charge straight and slow him down


Ole!


This matador was on his knees in front of a pretty sassy bull...gutsy.


When a bull isn´t up for the fight, they replace him, but first they have to get him out of the ring with the help of some cows


My new fave bullfighter, El Fandi. He´s from Granada and is one of the best fighters in Spain today. It doesn´t hurt that he´s pretty good looking too :)


You can barely see him but behind the yellow and red banner is the "Master of Ceremonies"-el presidente. He decides when to move to the next phase of the fight by signaling with white hankerchiefs.


At the end of the fight, the crowd shows how much they liked the fight by waving white handkerchiefs. (Since we didn´t have a handkerchief, we used paper towels. Heh.) This is also the way the audience "votes" for what trophies the matador gets. A good fight gets an ear, a really good fight gets both ears, and an utterly amazing fight gets the two ears and the tail. Only Fandi got the 2 ears and the tail. Then, as the matador is walking around the ring (taking his victory lap, if you will) he throws his prizes into the crowd. Slightly odd...what do you do with a bull´s ear?