Bull versus Man (well 5 men, a horse, some knives, a spear and a sword)

Alright, everyone is requesting that I write about the bullfight, so here we go...

I spent three days in Seville. The first day I was there I was checking email in the common area and met four guys - Ruben from Toronto, David from Houston (who, while working in Fallujah, almost had his hand blown off), Ben (I forget where he´s from), and Aaron from Oregon. The four of them were all traveling solo but had met each other at different points along the way. They were talking about attempting to get tickets to a bull fight later that evening and asked if I wanted to come along. I figured, hey, when in Spain...(which has sort of been my motto so far for this trip). About an hour later, we´re walking to the stadium, arrive right before the match/fight/slaughter (I´m not sure what the technical term is) was about to start and somehow managed to scalp $45 euro tickets for $20. I honestly had no idea what to expect. My only experience with bullfighting was from watching it on TV at the bar in Madrid.

The way it works is the bull comes charging into the ring, un-speared and full of energy. There are between 3-5 guys (we were calling them fluffers, again not sure if this is a technical term or not) with pink capes. They put on a show, waving their capes, having the bull charge at them, either swerving out of the way, or if the bull is coming especially fast, ducking behind a wooden barrier. The fluffers put on a show for a few minutes, then a horn blows and it´s time for the second act -- two guys on horses. The horses are blindfold and coated with some sort of armor. The guys on the horses have long spears. At some point, the bull charges the horse, hits the horse and gets speared by the guy on top. The horse act was my least favorite. The only purpose I could see was to maim the bull. The guy on the horse was not in danger because he was high enough up that the bull couldn´t reach him. I wasn´t so psyched that the horse, who was blindfolded, just had to take these hits from the bull without having any idea what was going on.

The fluffers at least had some skill and impressive footwork. Also there was a clear hierarchy even among the fluffers. It was obvious some were pretty new at this -- they would wave their cape and then immediately run behind the wooden barrier. Others stayed out in the ring, doing almost a dance with the bull, who at this point is charging hard and fast. The most impressive move was when one of the fluffers moved his cape just so and the bull hit the ground, horns first, propelling him upwards and then completely over into a sommersault.

So after the horses, come the knife guys. They have these decorated long knives, with points that I don´t think are too long, sort of like thumb tacks at the end, but longer for decoration and so the guys can hold them. Anyways, these guys provoke the bull to charge at them (they have no cape to swing away at the last minute, it´s just them versus the bull), then they also run at the bull, throw the knives into it´s back/neck area and dodge out of the way at the last minute. This one is also impressive because it seems pretty dangerous. The bull is only slightly maimed and a little tired out from all the running, so it´s still coming at the guy pretty fast.

After two of these guys have a go at the bull, the horn blows again and out struts the matador (seriously, every matador has a strut)....By this time the bull is heaving to catch its breath, bleeding, and has at least two of the knife thingys dangling from its back. Not exactly in top form. But to his credit, the matador gets extremely close to the bull, and to see how the two of them move together is pretty interesting. I have both photos and video, which I swear I will post, sometime soon. The video is interesting because I have video of the bull versus the fluffer and the bull versus the matador and the change in the speed of the bull is glaringly obvious.

So, in total, three matadors "battled" seven bulls and killed six. The bull that sommersaulted from the fluffer was spared (apparently the landing broke something, so it couldn´t do the turns). The first bull was half dead by the time the matador came out. And by half dead I mean that on its first charge at the matador, it collapsed. The fluffer had to instigate it to get it back up. So at this point I´m pretty disgusted by the whole thing. But it seems that there is a ranking even among the bulls because as the match went on, the bulls were more alive by the time the matador came out. The fifth bull was especially fiesty, and the matador was especially daring. His body was brushing the bull´s, as he barely edged out of the way. Then on one charge, the bull hit him. The matador flipped over the bull and landed as the crowd screamed and the fluffers rushed out to shield him from further bull charges. The fluffers are picking him up and start to help him out of the arena, but the matador is resisting and you can tell there is a struggle (I´m sure some of it was dramatized for effect) between the matador wanting to finish and the fluffers who don´t want him to get killed in front of a packed arena. My first thought was, well the bull has to fight to the death, so should the matador.

So the matador finishes the fight and kills the bull.

All in all, it was an extremely intense experience. I´ve never witnessed an animal that large get slaughtered. And I saw it 6 times. I´m glad I went, but I don´t think I will ever go again. My bullfighting companions all said the same thing and we all decided that we wish we had understood a little more about why it was such an important part of the Spanish culture. Although we did determine that bullfighting must be why the Spanish eat dinner so late. Watching six large mammals die slow, gruesome deaths doesn´t exactly pique one´s appetite.