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Behind the Scenes

By Daniel Lins - 2010-01-11

Behind the Scenes

I woke up early and dressed quietly while the other guys slept. We were in the town of Chalhuanca, in the Peruvian Andes, and I had heard that there would be a bullfight today. If I played my cards right, maybe I could help! I walked uphill, to the house of the "capitanes" of the Festival. Every year, a different family hosts and pays for the week of the festival. I had met the queen yesterday, and she had invited me to breakfast in the courtyard with the other participants: band members, dancers, bullfighters, bull wranglers, and chefs.

I snuck into the group of men with lassos and whips, and started making small talk. As the only gringo in town with a bright red beard, people had already started to recognize me. So they made a few jokes which I only half understood, and then invited me to come up to the mountain to run the bulls down.

We hiked up the mountain behind the city, to the pasture where more than 40 bulls were grazing. After a short and grave briefing about the danger of this endeavor, we set to work. Whirling lassos and yelling at the top of our lungs to scare the bulls into a tight pack, we then ran them down through the streets of town, knocking over carts and tables and startling people in the street. It was a dangerous balance of sprinting to keep up, corralling the bulls the right direction, and jumping back when they tried to turn on us. We finally arrived in the bull ring, whooping and hollering and jumping out of the way of the charging bulls.

Later, I got to help lasso and pull the bulls into the ring. It was like a regular tug-of-war, with the gringo against the bulls. Of course the guys all laughed and finally helped me after I lost the first layer of skin on my palms. The chief of the bull-wranglers adopted me as his son and I got to hang around him all day. He even defended me when some locals wanted me to take a safer seat in the crowd.

Palling around with the other bull wranglers and viewing the bullfight from the best seat in the house was one of the most awesome parts of the trip. And when the first fighter killed his bull, we all leaped over the wall and drug the body out to be butchered. Afterward, we washed up and shared a local drink called Chicha for a job well done.

Twenty five bulls later (they only kill a few of them), we all danced in the ring and then promenaded out into the streets of the town, followed by the band in full party mode. Of all the experiences we’ve had on the trip, I’d have to say this was the most fun.