los torrelos

on Tuesday me and Armando took what was went to be a day trip to San Cristobol – to watch some bull fighting.  crossing the Venezuela border was kind of weird.  From Colombia you walk into San Antonio, there is no-one monitoring the actual border.  at first glance it appears to be like the borders in Europe, just an unmanned booth.  Armando explained that immigration office is actually located in the town.  Once we had got our passports stamped and changed our pesos to bolivars we got a ride in some ones car to San Cristobol.  the city build on the slopes of two mountains and was filled with art.  Almost every wall had some sort of mural on it – the majority of them telling you to vote for Chavez.  after talking to a few people we found out that bull fight start in the evening so we would have stpend the night.  so while we were waiting for the bull fight to start we drank. 

I still don´t totally under stand all the rules of a bull fight but here’s what i do get:  there are four stages and each stage is represented by a different piece of music.  the first stage the matador and and his helpers test the bull and then run behind a shield which is build in to the ring.  once the matador is satified then some horses are brought out.  The bull charges them and the riders stab the bull to weaken it and make it tired.  once they are done the matador takes two steaks and  stabs the bull in the neck he does this two or three times then he has the bull charge him some more before he kills it with a sword he stabs throught he neck of bull.

 the madadors i saw weren´t that good it took the six swords to kill the bull when it should only take one two most to kill the beast.

 very interesting sport.  I don´t understand why it not loved by Americans lots of blood lots of beer and the killing of an Innocent animal.