We had noticed a structure being built in the market place, and discovered that it was a temporary bullring, so off we went to see what was happening - and got there just in time to see the bulls being "run" down the street and guided into the ring.


The steel bars which formed the ring were quite close together, but we found some which were slightly further apart & squeezed through, went upstairs and waited for the action to begin. The ring was set up with stepped platforms, a sort of vaulting horse structure and a trough, all to protect the young men from the town as they attempted to either place a tasselled ring on one of the bull's horns, or remove said ring.



It was quite entertaining as one lad obviously thought he was a matador and attracted the bull using his Adidas jacket as a bullfighter’s cape. The bull, however, was not amused, and when the lad dropped the jacket in his hurry to escape through the bars, the bull trampled on it, then gored it with his horns. Bull 1 – matadors 0.


The lads were quite skilful, nipping between the bars at the last second, or shooting up the steps onto the platform; this was obviously supposed to be too difficult for the bull to ascend – until one adventurous one did, whereon the lad shot down the other side even faster than he went up. One lad eventually managed to get the tassel onto the bull’s horns to much cheering from the crowd, and there were several close shaves for everyone to gasp at.


Interesting though the bull-baiting was, it was very hot in the full sun, so we repaired to the camp site ready for the afternoon session of boules. This was a real international affair, with all the different nationalities mixing in and playing in teams; one game could be a Brit, a French chap & a Belgian versus a German, a Swiss & a Dutch guy, the next could be any combination of the above and any mix of the sexes. All the nationalities were represented – apart from the Spanish, who didn’t seem to play at all. It was great fun, & we all finished up at Happy Hour so all was right with the world.


Later that night we returned to the bullring for the “Entrance of the Fire Bulls” as advertised in camp; we had no idea what it was, but it sounded interesting and obviously in the dark.
There was more of the same bull-baiting we had seen earlier, but then a bull was held tightly in place while one man attached sort of horn extensions, then lit the tips. It looked quite impressive but I was relieved that the bull didn’t actually seem bothered by having flaming horns – I couldn’t have watched if it was. There was more of the jacket flourishing/arm waving/skipping out of the way we’d seen earlier, but as there were no attempts to attach the tassel (which would have been impossible), we watched for a while then walked home.