Ole! :(

This past weekend was certainly an experience.  Amber and I went to our first and probably last bullfight.  Amber won´t write about this, because she does not want to remember it.  I thought it was fairly cruel but interesting and exciting too. Also as a warning, I´m about to describe everything that happened, which involves bulls being killed and an injured horse.   Our friend's uncle, Guillermo Albán, is an internationally famous matador and he saved some tickets for us.  The fight was in the city of Riobamba, which is about 3 hours south of Quito.  In much of Ecuador, they´re not allowed to kill the bull in the ring. They just take the bulls out back and do it.  However, in Riobamba, the matador still can make the kill in the ring.  Here´s the breakdown of the bullfight we saw.  7 bulls who have had little contact with humans their whole lives are caught and brought to the ring.  The first bullfighter was from Portugal and he fought the bulls while on horseback.  He pretty much did everything the matadors did but from a horse.  There was one matador from Spain and two from Ecuador.
 The bulls weight was announced (ours were between 970 and 1015 pounds) and then released into the ring.  It ran around pissed off and people with capes would distract it.  The matador would also have the bull charge at his larger cape, but unlike the other people who used the hold-the-cape-and-get-the-hell-out-of-the-way method, he would stand his ground as the bull went by.  After about 5 minutes of this, the president of the bullfight would have his trumpet players play a short song to signify to move to the next round.  Now the Picadores come out.  The Picadores are men on heavily armored, blindfolded, and sedated draft horses.  Their job is to jab the bull in the back of the neck with a lance to tire it out, straighten its charge and lower its head.  The horses were hit very hard by the bull and sometimes fell over.  One horse was knocked over and gored in the neck.  The horse got up on his own and walked out, but we don´t know its fate after.  The trumpets play and it moves to the next round.  Now there are guys with two decorated, long hooked spears who´s job is to go up to the bull, jab the spears in its back and get away before being killed.  These guys were the most impressive in my opinion.  Trumpets play and now it is the matadors main event.  With a smaller, red cape and small sword the matador has the bull charge the cape as he shows off his bravery and control over the animal.  The bull come within inches of the matador, but he doesn't get hurt.  He does this for a about 5 or so minutes and then the trumpets play again.  The final stage.  The matador changes to a larger and heavier sword.  He continues to have the bull charge the red cape as he waits for the right moment to kill the bull.  When ready, the matador holds the sword out and lunges at the bull.  If he his his mark, the roughly 2 1/2 foot sword is thrust completely into the bull, piercing the heart.   The bull then stumbles around for a bit and falls over.  Sometimes its clean, sometimes its pretty gruesome.  Its usually not dead yet, so someone puts a knife through the back of its head.  One fight lasts around 20-30 minutes.  This whole thing is then repeated.  Each matador gets 2 bulls each.  The audience had a lot of control over the fight.  If someone does something they don´t like, they whistle and yell until they stop.  If the audience really likes a bull, they yell and whistle before the kill and the bull gets pardoned.  This happened to one lucky bull while we were there.   The ranking of the matador is based on the ears and tail system.  Depending on his performance, either nothing, one ear, two ears, or the tail is cut off the bull and given to the matador.  No ears is terrible, one is okay, two is better, and a tail is the best.  After the fight, we jumped down into the outer ring to go meet our friend's uncle.  He didn't win, but he also had some non-ideal bulls for bullfighting.  We then drove home and got back to Qutio around 1:00 in the morning.    Here´s the Youtube of the fight.  Seriously, don´t watch this if you don´t want to see bulls die.  Or at least read the description to know which parts to skip.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98emN9QDqwA 
     On a happier note, I ran a 7k run in Quito the next morning which was run by the university we work for.  I finished in 40:41 seconds, which I think is pretty good for not practicing and being at 9,000 ft above sea level.  We then ate at the pancake house.

Interesting fact:  Visible from the town of Riobamba is the talles volcano in Ecuador, Chimborazo.  It is 6268.2 meters above sea level. What makes it unique though is it is the farthest point from the center of the planet.  Because the earth is not a perfect sphere and bulges at the equator, the top of Chimborazo is farther away from the center of the earth than Mt. Everest.