OLE!; La Corrida del Toros

Bueno, bueno mis amigos!
Yo se que no he escribido nada por mucho tiempo. Lo siento y desculpame; it's not that I've been busy or anything. It's pretty much that I forgot the URL to this blog. Oops! (btw- they totally say oops here too. Apparently that has international meaning...)

Anyway, a couple of updates. Two weekends ago I went to Cuernavaca with Honor, Elena, and Austin and my GOD was it truly amazing. We originally had planned to stay in a hostel near the Zocalo (town center) however, apparently that was shut down 2 years before. Thank you, Lonely Planet- your book sucks and it's totally out of date. Anyway, it worked out ok because we stayed in this little shady motel on a dirty side street just about 4 blocks from the main Zocalo in Cuernavaca. The place was totally like something out of a movie; you paid cash so no paper trail of your presence there, there was one lightbulb in the room and the lamp was off-kilter, there were two beds in which I don't even wanna think about questioning whether or not where changed in the past week. The bathroom didn't have a lock and looked like the inside of a prison. It was pretty chill- definitely something to remember.
We basically chilled around the city the whole weekend; walking around, drinking, and of course, eating street food. Elena had like 3 cups of Maize with mayonesa (I know dude- nasty, right?), everyone ate Tortas (sandwhiches) and fruit off the street all weekend. And of course, being the gringa that I am I got sick for two days afterwards. Bueno, right? Haha- oh well, it was still a good trip.

This week was also another week of firsts. I played futbol for the VERY first time! For all the super-Gringos, that means soccer. Anyway, it was a totally bitchin game! It was the Gringo Intercambios vs. The Mexicans and we fucking WON dude! Yeah- take it Mexico, Gringos conquer ALL! I totally sucked as a player but hey, who gives a shit? I blame the altitude. Puebla is over 7,000 ft. high. Count it, dude, that's higher than Denver Colorado.

Anyway, this weekend so far has been pretty fuckin' chill. Nacho called me yesterday to go to the Corrida del Toros (i.e., bullfight) with Juan (Nacho's brother and friend of mine), Juan's girlfriend Alexandra from Romania, and Nacho & Juan's dad. NEVER in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would have enjoyed watching bulls get stabbed in the neck with lanzas, pero MIERDA it was SO much fun!! No seriously, guys, follow me here. Bullfights on TV suck- they are SO boring. But when you're actually there in the stadium watching these amazing guys fight psychotic bloody animals? Its a different story, definido.

Ok- so in order to make this interesting, a little help from history and wikipedia. Spanish-style bullfighting, "La Corrdia del Toros" literally translating to "Running of the Bulls" or "Fiesta Brava" meaning "Ferocious Festival", "is highly ritualized with three distinct stages or tercios, the start of each being announced by a trumpet sound. The participants first enter the arena in a parade to salute the presiding dignitary, accompanied by band music. Torero costumes are inspired by 18th century Andalusian clothing, and matadores are easily distinguished by their spectacular "suit of lights" (traje de luces).

Next, the bull enters the ring to be tested for ferocity by the matador and banderilleros with the magenta and gold capote ("dress cape").

In the first stage, the tercio de varas ("the lancing third"), the matador first confronts the bull and observes his behavior in an initial section called suerte de capote. Next, a picador enters the arena on horseback armed with a varas ("lance"). To protect the horse from the bull's horns, the horse is surrounded by a 'peto' — a protective cover. Prior to 1909, the horse did not wear any protection, and the bull would literally disembowel the horse during this stage.

At this point, the picador stabs a mound of muscle on the bull's neck, leading to the animal's first loss of blood. The manner in which the bull charges the horse provides important clues to the matador on which side the bull is favoring. If the picador does his job well, the bull will hold its head and horns lower during the following stages of the fight. This makes it slightly less dangerous while enabling the matador to perform the elegant passes of modern bullfighting.

In the next stage, the tercio de banderillas ("the third of flags"), the three banderilleros each attempt to plant two razor sharp barbed sticks (called banderillas) on the bull's flanks, ideally as close as possible to the wound where the picador drew first blood. These further weaken the enormous ridges of neck and shoulder muscle through loss of blood, while also frequently spurring the bull into making more ferocious charges.

In the final stage, the tercio de muerte ("the third of death"), the matador re-enters the ring alone with a small red cape (muleta) and a sword. It's a common myth that the color red is supposed to anger the bull, despite the fact bulls are colorblind (the real reason that a red colored cape is used is that any blood stains on it will be less noticeable). He uses his cape to attract the bull in a series of passes, both demonstrating his control over it and risking his life by getting especially close to it. The faena ("work") is the entire performance with the muleta, which is usually broken down into "tandas" or "series". The faena ends with a final series of passes in which the matador with a muleta attempts to maneuver the bull into a position to stab it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart. The act of thrusting the sword is called an estocada."

...thank you Wikipedia.

Anyway, despite the whole bloody nature of the bullfight, it was really an amazing (experience especially the horses!). The main bullfighter was Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza- a really famous bullfighter who fights on horseback. My GOD where the horses totally increible!! I mean really, these horses were just so agile and fit- it was jaw-dropping to see the bulls horns get so close to the horses' side and then Pablo would just do the craziest spins and tricks and shit. My mom would have loved to see it- she would have whispered to me "I bet Buck could have done this when he was young!"

After that, Nacho, Juan, their Dad, Alexandra and I all went out for pizza and then to The Cantinera Bar in Chahlula. It was so awesome, because I'm a gringa all the mexican guys wanna buy me drinks! I got a little tipsy and ended up dancing the night away until 2am.

So yeah, definitely something to update about. It was definitely a good day...

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