Weekend in Aranda de Duero

I must tell you all about the weekend I just had. I have to say that I was one of the most crazy/fun weekends of my life.

So my host mother and father both grew up in the same town called Aranda de Duero. It’s about 90 km from Palencia and is ruffly the size of Bozeman. They both have a great deal of family still there and visit quite often.

We went to Aranda for the weekend because it was the town's “Festivals.” What these are are basically a week of fiestas, bullfighting, and fun. Every town and city has their own festivals which usually take place sometime during the summer. For example Pamplona’s festival is a bunch of people running through the streets in front of bulls which the town has become famous for. So I was lucky enough to go to a festival being that most of them have already happened.

We get there on Friday night and their fiestas was already going on. In Spain you are looked down upon for going to bed before six in the morning during festivals. I called my host mother at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday to tell her I’m home and she said “What! So Soon!” It was absolute craziness. I’ll give you the highlights of some of the things I did while I was there so as not to go on for too many pages.

One thing I got to do was go to a bull fight. Now I know that many of you must be against the idea of bullfighting but please bear with me. While in Spain I felt that to have not gone to a bullfight at least once would have been a complete sin. It was such an interesting experience and one that I am so glad that I went to. Now the bull does die and all that but the culture and interesting parts that go around it is one that I will treasure forever. If you are against bull fighting on principle I suggest you give it a shot at least once in your life so as to know you really don’t like it. It’s like trying new food, you can’t say no until you’ve tried it once. A system that’s worked out good for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have eaten Pig Ear soup. A fatty and very crunch experience.

The bull fight is the corner stone of the festival and everything revolves around it. There is a large parade leading up the street that people jump into leading up to the bull ring. A very large and well made circular structure that is set up exactly like a Coliseum and lies in the middle of town. It’s surprisingly well made for only being used once a year. When the bull fight is over the people lead and even larger and crazier parade out of the bull ring and down the main street of town. This parade is made up of pretty much the entire town and takes about three hours to go through. There are bands put through out the giant mobs of thousands of people down the street and everyone is slowly dancing and moving forward then backwards. It was amazing.

So Raquel’s brother in law got me a ticket for the bull fight with him and was so excited I wanted to go. He kept taking my camera and made me take pictures with just random people off the street. He was very excited about the idea of getting a picture of me and one of the bull fighters. Something that he worked on the whole time the fight was going on and finally managed to achieve at the end of the fight. During the bull fight he keep bringing me different types of food that goes with bull fights and introducing me to everyone one there.

The bull fight begins with everyone yelling as a band of horns start to play a song that you think would announce the coming of the king. Out come the three bull fighters on gorgeous horses and also come out a bunch of little bull fighters with little pick cloaks. These less important bull fights will stand around the out side of ring behind little barriers and will come out to either keep the bull amused or moving or to redirect the bull. The three bullfighters on horses are the ones to keep your eyes on.

Now there are two different kind of bullfighting and this one was the lesser known of the two. Now when most think of bullfighting they think of a man with a red cape on the ground with the bull. That is one way but the way I watched was the second way which was done completely on horses. Both ways follow the same format and end up the same way for the bull but they do differ from each other to a degree.

Now these horses are the most beautiful and well trained horses that I have ever seen. The bullfighter has different stages that it goes through with the bull and between each stage he gets on a new horse. So by the end of each bullfight you see about 4 different horses that you can’t help but watch the entire time.

Overall there are six bulls and three different bullfighters that each go in order. One bullfighter does one bull then the next bullfighter goes until each had battled two bulls. Now the bullfighters are very well dressed and are very good at playing the audience. At many times through the fight the bullfighter will ride right up to the audience through his hand in the air and yell. This will cause the audience to cheer more and yell and such. If you’ve seen the movie “Gladiator” with Russel Crowe then you know that the fighter have to be a showmen to the mob.

Now the objective is to eventually kill the bull without ever getting off your horse. This is actually quite hard being that these bulls are huge and are very aggressive. Right when they are let into the ring they rush at one of the little bull fighters at they have to jump behind their barriers. One thing I thought was cool is that bulls actually do that whole thing where they paw the ground with both feet before they charge. I always thought that was just something that cartoon bulls do. Thought that was cool.

So there are sort of 4 stages that go to a bull fight. The first stage has to do with a sort of spear about the length of your leg. This is a very colorful spear and its knife is about the size and length of your hand. Now the bull will run at the fighter and the horse is trained to jump to the side and the fighter will bring this spear down into the back of the bull at about the shoulder blades. Now the spear head will come off in the bull and a flag will unfurl on the stick and the fighter will wave it around to the audience. The fighter will do about two of these spears to the bull.

Next stage has to do with these colorful sticks about the length of your arm. At the end is a spear head with a hook on it so it will hook and stay in the bull. There are about four of these that the fighter does which all are then hanging down the sides of the bull.
Then there are three small hooked one about the length of your forearm. All these different things go into about the area of the shoulder blades of the bull.

At this point the bull is bleeding pretty badly but you wouldn’t know it from how it keeps rushing the fighter. Before this the bull had never really seen humans and don’t really know whats going on the whole time. They are treated very well before this point and have lived all their life in field. After the fight every piece of the bull is eaten and in many restaurants you can actually order meat that’s been used in a fight. I know its not much but if that’s any consolidation at all.

The final part of the fight is the Fighter is given a long sword that is then uses on the bull. The hope is that the sword will kill the bull. On a couple of fighters it did which the audience love and all would wave some kind clothing to show their liking of the fight. The quickest death is what is wanted for the bull and when this doesn’t happen the audience doesn’t like it.

When the sword doesn’t kill the bull the fighter has to get down off its horse and go grab his red cape and a long metal spear. The fighter will walk right up to the bull and put the cape it is face and move it down to the ground. The bull will bow its head and stare at the cape as though bowing to the fighters. Its really crazy how fascinated by those things the bull are. Then the fighter will take a stance in front of the bull and take the spear to the base of the skull. This will usually kill the bull at this point.

The fighter will then walk around the outside of the ring while people throw him stuff. Nothing of importance is ever thrown though. Mostly it is only wine skins that the fighter never wants and always throws back.

Then two mules dressing in the Spanish colors of red and yellow will come out and drag the bull away. Then the ring is prepared for the next fight.

Its crazy and everyone the whole time is having a great time. They are all drinking and smoking and eating and walking around and talking to everyone in the ring. After the third fight everyone breaks out a bocadillo (Spanish sandwich) that they brought and the entire ring has a little snack together. Everyone is sharing their food and drink with everyone else and its wonderful. The Spanish are truly some of the most generous and nice people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I truly mean that.

So ya that’s pretty much the bull fights. After the sixth bull everyone rushes out on the streets and fiestas until the sun comes up. It was truly an amazing time and one that I feel lucky to have been a part of.

There are a few things that I thought were cool are the festivals that are worth mentioning. All the teenagers and young people wear these multi color overalls the have writing all over. You let the straps hang down and you let people write all over the pants. Thought that was interesting. Another thing is that everyone wears the same type of blue checkers bandana. All people of all ages wear it either around your neck or on your wrist. Each year of festivals has a button that you then button on to your bandana to show how many you’ve been to.

So ya that was my weekend. Thought I’d share it with you. Sorry for going into so much detail about the bull fight but I thought it was just such an interesting experience. We came back Sunday afternoon and everyone was very tired and in need of sleep. It was very cool to see however how the Spanish don’t really consider working as way of life but more consider it a means so one can then enjoy the company of others and have a good time while doing it. So ya all is well here I hope you are all doing well. Much love.

Cody