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Anti-bullfighting Protests Heat up in Lima
Public outrage over animal cruelty in bullfighting is mounting in Lima, home to the famed Senor de los Milagros bullfighting festival (Nov. 2 – 23, 2008). The festival takes place in Plaza de Acho, the oldest bullring in the Americas and the second-oldest in the world. Say hello to my little friend: Anti-bullfighting posters in Lima feature a blood-crazed matador a la Tony Montana (poster: www.peruantitaurino.org) Last Sunday, November 2, about 300 members of the group Peru Antitaurino rallied at the Plaza San Martin, in downtown Lima, to protest the start of the month-long festival. (The Spanish word for “antibullfighting” is “antitaurino.”) The protestors marched at 2;30 p.m. to Acho…
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The Great Leveler
Sand leveller Carlos Echevarria, Plaza de Acho, Lima; photo c. Jorge Vera 2008 Carlos Echevarria has been leveling the arena at Lima’s Plaza de Acho bullring for 35 years. It is his job to cart in fresh sand, spread it over the 60-meter-wide arena and pack it into a firm, even surface. Then a pair of workers uses a rope and spike to draw concentric circles inside the 360-degree arena, to mark where the bulls and matadors will fight. Echevarria watches to make sure that the circles are neat and round. Built in 1766, the Plaza de Acho arena is the oldest bullring in the Americas, the second oldest in the world after La Maestranza, in Seville,…
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Spanish Bullfighter Gets Gored in Nuts, Drops out of Peru Bullfight Festival
“There’s no way to be a great matador and not get gored.” That’s what Bob Simon of 60 Minutes drew from his experiences while reporting on bullfighters in Spain, and it’s an ethos shared by most professional matadors. (Click here to read about Simon’s getting gored himself while researching his story.) Horrendous groin accidents are part of the job, which involved shimmying as close as possible to the horns of a furious 2,000-pound beast. (What were people thinking when they invented this sport?) A particularly brutal bullfight in Madrid earlier this month left several matadors bleeding in their partes nobles (literally, “noble parts,” or gonads), among them Miguel Angel Perera of Spain.…
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Photo of the Day: Alpacas Grazing in Upis, Peru
An alpaca lifts his head while grazing on ichu grass, near Mount Ausangate; photo c. Barbara Drake 2008 Anthropologist Inge Bolin comments on the deep bond between traditional people in the high Andes and their animals: “People talk about their llamas and alpacas with great emotion. ‘They are our brothers and sisters,’ the people of Chillihuani often comment. ‘We owe our lives to these animals and they owe theirs to us.’ High-altitude herders have also called llams and alpacas ‘our ancestors.’ In the Andes, humans and their alpacas are part of the same empirical and spiritual world. They are believed to arise from the same source and to be governed…
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Beefcake at the Corrida: Photos of Tauros and Toreros in Acho 2008
Matador David Galan, who stars in the Nov. 2 corrida Raging bulls, elaborate torture rituals, hot sun and sand, seriously handsome guys in skin-tight outfits skewering animals through the aeorta: Lima’s Feria de Acho bullfight season (Nov. 2 – 23, 2008) showcases raw, in-your-face Spanish-style bullfighting, and the Peruvian crowds love it. Spanish matador Uceda Leal, of Madrid, who fights in the first Acho corrida, Nov. 2 It’s death and seduction and sadism all wrapped in the stiff trappings of Spanish colonialism: arcane rules, classist seating arrangements, trumpet calls, elegant brocaded jackets. The event exerts a weird, insidious fascination on some foreigners who might otherwise never be caught dead (lol) at a ritual animal slaughter. Just purchasing a ticket and braving the…
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Make Way for the Matadors
Back in the United States, tension and uncertainty are mounting to excruciating levels as November 4 nears. One guy will win, one guy will lose, and the specters of voting improprieties and riot police haunt many Americans’ visions of what might happen on Election Day 2008. Hopefully the presidential candidates’ “duel to the death” will be metaphoric, not literal. Here in Peru, the end of October signals the arrival of another highly anticipated, combative event: bullfighting season. The blood shed in Lima’s historic Plaza de Acho stadium this November is certain to be real, however. South America’s oldest bullfighting ring (c. 1766) draws crowds for its annual festival of Spanish-style…
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Back from the Land of the Blue-eyed Alpaca
I spotted this unusual blue-eyed alpaca on a hillside in Upis I returned to Lima this past Saturday after a week trekking around Mount Ausangate, in southern Peru, with my cousin and a Quechua-Spanish translator from Cusco. What an experience. It was a work trip, rather than a vacation per se; we’d wake up at six each morning, bolt down some oatmeal and then walk to the next pueblo to find people to interview. I was there to talk to people about climate change and how it’s impacting their daily rituals and religious celebrations. A few random observations: (1) The ice caps are melting rapidly, and extreme weather events are…
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Looking for Love, Doggie-style
The come-ons are written in Spanish and taped to a wooden counter by the cash register: ” I’m handsome, neat, and my name is Chester. I’m looking for a hot little bitch who’s crazy for me!” “I’m playful and loving, with a good character. Searching for a beautiful girlfriend to make a family. (Please call my owner’s cell phone number.)” Many include color photos of the machos, like this one for “Diego”: “Hi, my name is Diego and I’m a 4-year-old bombón Lab. I’m searching for a girlfriend. It’s already time to think about the future.” El Fotógrafo and I check out the signs each week when we…
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Extreme Bird Love, That
Here in Lima, the trees and rooftops are overrun with cuculis — plumpish grey morning doves who coo mournfully, mate in treetops, and shit absolutely everywhere. With all this cuculi mess around, it’s easy for a Limena to forget that Peru itself is considered a birder’s paradise. I certainly forgot. Then I read an article in last Sunday’s El Comercio about “the four types of foreign tourists” in Peru and what they like to spend their money on, and of the four prototypical turistas, one of them was The Birdlover. Otherwise known as Wads ‘o Cash. Birdlovers, the article claimed, spend more than other visitors to Peru — more than Archaeology/Cultural Tourists,…
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Es Hembrita?
Figure 1: Lola at 3 1/2 months, on the Malecon, in Miraflores Es hembrita? That’s the first question Peruvians ask me when I’m out walking Lola. It doesn’t matter if the person is male or female, young or old, with dog or without. Nine times out of ten, a Peruvian seeing my dog for the first time wants to know if she’s a bitch (hembra). Sometimes, they want to know if she’s a little bitch (hembrita). In contrast, back in the United States the first question people ask is, “What’s your dog’s name?” From the answer, they usually can infer the animal’s sex. Peruvians get right to the point. Hembra…
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Why Would Someone in Her Right Mind Buy Denim Panties for a Labrador?
Lola’s in heat. Where do I begin this story? I can’t. Not today. It’s a saga. I’ll just post the image and explain later. It does have something to do with attitudes toward pets in Peru. Utterly redonkulous, as Meg from Cute Overload would say.
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Another Arequipa Wedding Guest
Cute llama pix are a needed tonic to the barrage of awfulness in today’s world. A self-professed llama freak, from Eugene, Oregon, has asked for more camelids on this site. Of course, I oblige. Figure 1: Munching alpaca at Jose & Daniela’s wedding, photo c. Barbara Drake 2008
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El Híjo Weighs in on Bullfighting
After our encounter with Peru’s famous child matador yesterday morning, El Híjo and I hunted down a YouTube video of 10-year-old “El Andi” at the 2008 Las Palmas fiesta. Figure 1: Peru’s boy matador Andrés Roca Rey, at in the “Senor de los Milagros” bullfighting festival, in the historic Ancho bullring, in Lima, Nov. 4, 2007, by Martin Mejia (AP) The footage started out great: El Andi executing beautiful passes, tossing his silken hair in true matador fashion, the young bull charging at him with alarming ferocity. The boy’s presence and athleticism were riveting – or so I thought. “Can you believe that’s the nice kid we just met in the…
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Boy Bullfighters in the Park
The boy in the grey t-shirt swept out his arm and arched his torso in an elegant bow-shape as the “bull” charged within an inch of his hip. Then he pivoted on one foot and flicked the cape at his opponent’s head. The red fabric spun and twirled, daring the sharp, curved horns to come closer. They were two Limeno kids, dressed in tracksuits and sneakers, practicing bullfighting passes in Parque Leoncio Prado this morning. One boy held a pair of bull’s horns mounted to a wooden handle. The other boy took turns practicing with red and pink capes and various swords. Nearby on a park bench, a slim middle-aged man called out instructions and exhorted them to…
