I had no idea what to expect when I was on my way to a bullfight. I knew I was naive going into it, especially since I thought only one bull got killed. My friends and I were excited to find our seats and wait for the bullfight to start. We thought we paid for seats in the shade, but sitting in the direct 80 degree sun sure provided for a nice tan! Luckily Maggie brought sunscreen. Once the bullfight started and the band played, I was excited and anticipating how this was going to go, since Maggie told me actually 6 bulls get killed and it lasts about 3 hours.
When the bull was released and started running around and being distracted by the "Capote" (cape) I realized that the bull gets stabbed multiple times by small bladed type swords that stay in their body through the whole thing. After the first bull was stabbed many times, and then stabbed for the final blow to make him lay down, the crowd was cheering loudly, and my eyes started to water, realizing bullfighting was not for me, and that this was going to be a LONG 3 hours.
All I had known about bullfighting before was from a segment on 60 minutes. I remember thinking I always wanted to go and experience that part of Spanish culture. I was surprised to see that there were so many young children at the fight, but then I realized that if you were brought up with this gruesome custom, you wouldn't think anything of taking your small child to witness it.
The bullfighters that stab the bull in the end to bring him down, are the most respected. But I thought that the ones who stab the bull first many times to weaken him have the harder job. It seemed to me that all the respected bull fighters have to do is stab it once with a giant sword, and they don't even kill it. To win, they just have to make it lay down after stabbing it. So if it doesn't lay down after a while, they just keep stabbing it until it does. When I was thinking about how disgusted I was with this, I felt hypocritical because I eat meat. Even though it's not the same. Oh, speaking of eating meat... after the first couple bulls are killed you start to smell food.... which would be the bulls that were just killed cooking to be sold after the fight. This experience put me one step closer to becoming a vegetarian.
It found it interesting that as the first bull was being tortured and killed, I was about ready to cry, but as more came and went, I found myself becoming desensitized to it; but still disgusted, as my group left before the last giant bull came out to fight.
The last one that we watched was as difficult to watch as the others, but was also awesome. Because as it was stabbed in the head for the final blow, it got back up... My friend Jenna and I cheered and wanted the bull to tackle the fighter. (yes I know that's gruesome, but after the first fight we were cheering for the bulls) He took about 2 more blows to the head before he wasn't able to get back up again.
The cheapest and worst thing I found about bullfighting is that, the bullfighter doesn't even kill the bull. After he stabs him with the sword and the bull lays down, the crowd cheers and waves their pañuelos in approval, another guy comes up and stabs it in the neck a couple times until they are sure it's dead. I could only watch that part twice. Then they cut the ears off and throw them into the crowd, and if the crowd really likes the bullfighter, they cut the tail off and the bullfighter holds a hot bloody tail and waves it around and receives the crowd's applause.
So after reading this you probably don't want to hear any more about bullfighting, but I took a lot of videos for people who want to see it "first hand" So, the videos are taking way too long to load, so if you want to see them, you'll have to visit me when I get home!
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