The Rodeo is in Town!!

What do you do for fun in a small, rural village?  Oh, sure, there's swimming and kayaking and volcanoes and petroglyphs and waterfalls and Toña.  But beyond all that, there isn't much.  No movie theater, no mall, no people watching at WalMart.  Don't get me wrong - it's gorgeous and peaceful here.  But exciting - no.  At least not often, anyway.  Yep - it's pretty much perfect in Merida.  All that tranquility goes out the screened-in window every weekend in February.

One of the big events in town each year is the rodeo.  Held on weekends during the month of February, this party is a big deal.  People come from all over the island, even some from the mainland.  In the middle of our small, quiet village there appears, out of nowhere, this mini-village.  The men in Merida build an arena in a big empty field.  This is where the bull riding takes place.  By the way, this rodeo is ALL bull riding.  Connected to the arena is a corral in which the bulls are held until such time as they need one to 'volunteer' to be ridden.  There is a gate that connects the two. 

A true 'caballero'

The restaurants in the area erect makeshift stalls, fill them with plastic patio furniture and sell their Nica food to the spectators.  Toña drops off branded beer fridges to each stall, along with what seems to be an infinite supply of beer and the drinking commences!  Seriously, there is a lot of beer consumed on these rodeo weekends.  The riding is held during daylight hours because there are no lights in the arena.  (Note to Jim Volke:  possible business opportunity for Impact Lighting Systems - this lead's a freebie, bro.)  

After the sun sets and the riding is finished, it's drinking, music and dancing.  We are convinced that Nicaragua does not allow sound engineers into the country because they play the music at the highest possible volume without any regard for sound quality or how it actually sounds.  You can hear it throughout the entire village.  Mike Sakarias - if you don't want any issues at immigration, do NOT tell them what you do for a living!

We went to the rodeo on Sunday of the first weekend it was held.  We had spent the weekend on the mainland, shopping for school supplies and household items for Casa de Profesors at Playa Gringo.  It's a big deal in town so even though we were a little worn out from the travel day, we didn't want to miss out on this cultural experience.  And what an experience it was!

The arena itself had been constructed from what appeared to be scrap lumber.  It was maybe 25 square meters with a viewing platform about four feet off the ground that went most of the way around, except for the corner where the corral was located.  There was one set of stairs that led up to the platform.  We paid the entry fee ($1.50, I think) and jostled our way through the crowd to an area where we could see the festivities.  We had to watch where we were stepping because there were height variations and gaps in the boards.  There was netting hung along the backside but nothing in front, so if you tripped or got nudged you could end up in the arena.  But with fencing around the inside, it would be an easy climb back up.  See below.

"Now where did we put that bull?"

The arena itself was a big square and in the corner opposite the corral there was a big post (i.e. former tree) about a ten inches in diameter and ~10-12 feet tall.  The top of the post had been left in a Y shaped notch.  As it turned out, this notch was an integral part of the bull riding process.  This was the first weekend, so it was mostly amateur riders, locals and such.  Here is how it worked:
1)  Cowboy rides into the corral and ropes a bull.
2)  Cowboy pulls/drags bull into arena.  If the bull was particularly stubborn one or more cowboys joined in with their ropes and horses until they convinced the bull this was going to be fun.
3)  To gain leverage, the cowboys ride around the post and flip their ropes up into the Y notch at the top, then ride along pulling the bull toward the post.

This guy was stubborn - took three ropes!

4)  With the bull's head firmly against the post due to the rope(s) and the notch, a brave soul (see picture, above - guy in white shirt/green hat) approaches the scared and/or pissed off animal, throws a rope around its neck and the post, tying a slip knot to hold the bull in place.  This is tricky in itself.  Most of the victims put up a struggle when the guy gets close.  Eventually, though, the bull loses out and the slip knot is in place.  The cowboys' ropes are then removed.
5)  Next, the emcee starts to cajole the crowd, trying to convince someone to ride.  In every case, it happened to be someone who had consumed enough Toña to make it seem like a dandy idea.  Usually these guys were propped up by their equally inebriated friends.  Much back slapping and advice is given.  Spurs are tied (!) onto the riders' feet.  While this is going on, the brave guy who tied the slip knot is also securing a rope around the bulls chest and another around its' 'junk', the latter to make the bull buck.
6)  When both rider and bull are ready, the rider chugs the last of his beer, takes a leg up and attempts to hop on.  Yes, the bull is held to the post by the ropes but he can still move in a circle around the post.  If he sees the drunk trying to get on him, he puts up a fight!  Alas, eventually the rider succeeds and the bull does not.  As soon as the guy is on, the brave dude pulls the slip knot, releasing the animal.  Hoo boy!

This guy got thrown and stomped on early in the day but kept riding.  He was limping around but got on and rode several times with no hands!

7)  Most of the bulls buck a few times, then make a beeline for the corral gate.  Sadly, a person is stationed there with a cattle prod so the bull gets zapped to force him back out into the arena.  
8)  Toña marketing and advertising commences as spectators throw beer cans at the bull and a couple of folks armed with red Toña banners taunt the bull.  

In the US, bull riders dress like NFL players - pads, mouth pieces, helmets - and are required to stay on for only 8 seconds.  When the 8 second horn sounds, he jumps off and the clowns take over while the rider makes his escape and does a promo for Bud Light.  In Merida, the riders wear whatever they wore to the rodeo that day, plus the spurs tied to the feet with twine and then they stay on for as long as they can.

As the riding commenced, the bulls got bigger and badder, the riders more drunk and more entertaining.  Toward the end, they brought out this guy:

Not a happy camper

It took a loooong time before anyone was drunk enough stepped forward to ride this guy. Which was sad because, after the long wait, the rider lasted about 1.8 seconds, after which this bull went into beast mode.  He tore around the arena, throwing his horns at anyone who was stupid enough to have their legs dangling over the side.  He made several attempts at ramming the arena fencing, too.  Then to add some extra flare, he proceeded to attempt a 'cow jumped over the moon' maneuver up onto the platform about 15 feet from where we were!  And he almost made it, too.  This created a sudden panic as mothers grabbed their children and fathers grabbed their beers, all rushing to the ONE SET OF NARROW STAIRS.  Yeah, wow.  We stayed put as people pushed their way past us.  Once the excitement died down, we took our leave in a more orderly and dignified fashion.  That is to say, we hightailed it as soon as the crowd had thinned.  

The cowboys finally got the bull into the corral but being back with his bull buddies didn't calm him down, so they did the next logical thing.  They let him loose… in the village.  He took off running down the road and finally stopped to graze, chill and reflect on his day.  He was the star of the show!

As the month wore on, Mini-Merida grew, with more stalls, more Toña signs and more drinking.  The quality of the rodeo - riders and bulls - increased.  The music volume stayed the same only because they couldn't turn it up any louder even if they wanted to.  Bex! and I hit the fiesta one evening with Theresa and Chris, two of our volunteers from Switzerland.  We danced and had a good time.  A local tried to cull Theresa from us so he could 'get to know her better' and we're pretty sure Chris got engaged, maybe even married, to a local girl.  

We decided to go to the rodeo one more time, the very last night.  Huge crowd - all of Merida was there, it seemed, and then some.  We had a heckuva time getting up on the platform.  After Big Meanie made his try to jump out, they ran a chain link fence around the inside, which was nice to see.  We found a good spot and watched, as much better riders rode much larger animals.  These bulls were huge!  The process was the same except all of the bulls took multiple cowboys to get them into position.  Some of the riders were amazing, too, riding with no hands and staying on for just about as long as they wanted.  It was a lot of fun.  

Afterward, we had dinner and beers at Tia Margarita's stall (tia = aunt).  She runs a restaurant in town and makes super delicious Nica food.  And for cheap, too.  We were joined by new friends Tim and Sasha from the UK and our local amigo, Peter.  Great food, some laughs and many Toña's later, we headed to our own corral for the night.

"Peek-a-mooo!"