On Sunday at noon as Elliot and I were just getting back to Masaya after finishing up some paperwork in the neighboring town we noticed a horde of people that were getting off of other buses at the same spot as us. Usually a bus passes every 10 minutes so to see 3 stopping at one time made me a bit curious. We decided to follow a group of the folks that were headed to the outskirts of town to see what we were missing out on. I don't really know a good name to call the place we arrived at. The most accurate description I can give is that it was a wooden two story structure made of uneven planks, all of which looked like they had been nailed together when dirt was first being made. You could see between each plank and if you stepped on the wrong spot on any given plank then it would bow about 2 to 4 inches toward the ground. In the center of this wooden coliseum was the arena. We took a walk around the top floor and on one side we saw a number of bulls lined up waiting to go into the arena. We were at a Nicaraguan Rodeo and the event of the day was bull riding! If you have been to one in the states then you have a general idea of what this looks like. There were a couple of points where the Nicaraguan version varied though.
1. Instead of 2 or 3 rodeo-clowns in the arena there were about 40 men inside the arena waiting their turn to ride the bulls.
2. Instead of using one hand to hold on to the bull they tied a rope from one foot to the other underneath the belly of the bull. The dismounts were amazing!
3. Sobriety was not a requirement to get on the bull or be in the ring with it.
4. nor was a helmet
5. the winner of the 25 dollar purse was not determined by the best 8 seconds of good form but rather by who could stay on the bull longest
6. the single best rider of the day was a sober female who wore a helmet.
We stayed for 4 hours and for every bit of it and I was either laughing or wincing. At some point during our stay I was approached about getting on one of the bulls. I think it is because they saw my swagger and it was obvious to them that I was a Texan. I had to explain to him that although I am from Texas and indeed we do ride bulls there, we only do it with boots on and unfortunately I was wearing tennis shoes.
That refusal compounded with a few others that I made have been weighing on me all week long. Fortunately today I at least got to rectify a little bit of the situation. As we were walking to lunch we saw another great commotion and decided to investigate. Great commotions seem to be the norm here. There was a single street lined with guys and girls of all ages. In the middle for the quarter mile that the street stretched were what looked like the entirety of Nicaragua's 15 to 25 year male population. I asked what was going on and I was told that it was the running of the bulls. For those of you that haven't seen this before the basic premise is that at one end of a long street you have a corral full of bulls. In front of those bulls are a mass of people that for various reasons decide it is a good idea to run in front of those bulls after the bulls' corral has been opened for 1. the duration of the street 2. until they can find way out or
3. until the bull catches up with them.
I knew where I belonged before anyone said "you should go run!" I made a bee line to the corral. This run was a little different than previous ones I have done. Usually all of the bulls are let out at one time. This time they were let out one at a time. Having a scared/angry bull on either side of the crowd you are in with the first one occasionally doubling back on the crowd made me more than a bit nervous. At one point Elliot and I found ourselves with a charging bull on one side of a light post and us on the other. It made a few guesses as to how to get to us before he left for easier targets. There was an unidentifiable puddle on one side of that light post after the bull retreated.
We quickly found out that it was not actually the bulls that we had to fear though. They were predictable and for most of us avoidable as well. The problem was the mob. They were unpredictable and the cause of almost all of the injuries.
After a half hour of running we retired for lunch.
Those bulls didn' t suffer the same fate as most. They were tied up after reaching their destination and eventually carted back out to their pastures.
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