The “stadium” resembles an erector set project abandoned by the short attention span of a child.  Rickety boards criss-cross each other to connect to “support posts” that sway slightly in their grounded holes.  A section of the surrounding barbed wire fence has been rolled back to provide the “entrance” to the travelling rodeo that we are attending with a slew of kids.  Being exorbitantly generous, we laid out the $1 per head for Moises, Armondo, Alias, and Jose and even sprung for the $1.50 adult fee so their oldest sister Ericka could come along.  These are not all the ninos in our Nica family.  You might remember Pedro from Las Penitas.  As if having seven of his own kids isn’t enough, he’s now adopted two gringos. 

We will quickly discover why seating is precariously raised some 10 feet above the stadium’s dirt floor.  As we get settled—drag folding chairs into a shaded spot, check that all four chair legs are hitting wood (not a gaping crack or upraised nail), play musical chairs until the three youngest are satisfied with their view—thirty or so men and boys are not finding seats at all, but climbing down into the ring.  I’ll call this mass of men “bull hecklers” and you’ll soon see why.  In Nicaragua, rodeo is not just a spectator sport.  The bull hecklers are joined by male vendors who advertise their product with loud shouts and peruse for possible customers from the stadium floor.  When someone signals their desire to purchase planitos, helados (ice cream cups), or mani (peanuts), the vendador grabs a rung of the scaffolding (known as structural support in sound construction) hikes himself and his wares up to eye level, and balances on his flip-flops to conduct a transaction through the handrails (and not the A.D.A. approved kind).

Then, the first bull is slotted into the holding pen.  The whole mob (vendors and all) surge to the gate to, well, I don’t know what they crowd in to do.  To get a closer look at the bull? To cheer on the man who is about to hop on said bull?  To feel the danger of standing in front of a gate from which an enraged bull is about to surge?  All I know is that there is a lot of chatter and it takes a considerable amount of time before someone emerges from the mob as rider, easy to spot since he now stands atop the gate and wears a proper pair of riding boots.  Perhaps they are drawing straws.  After all, the Montanas (riders) in the Nicaraguan rodeo are not professionals, they are not even part of the travelling act, they are local guys who once a year try their hand at bull riding. 

The release of the bull is marked first by a brief increase in the volume of the mob’s collective voices before they all stop talking and start running!  As the gate swings open, grown men, growing boys, and vendors laden with shoulder-holstered goods scatter to the edges.  The torro comes kicking and bucking forth and as it approaches any particular side and any bull hecklers who’ve chosen that spot either dive or climb for cover.  The logic of the aforementioned design now becomes obvious.  Here, being “under the bleachers” is even more thrilling than an illicit make-out session.  It’s a life saving hurling of yourself, either under the makeshift fence or up it, to lay or hang in wait of the bull’s departure.  Meanwhile, the unthreatened hecklers are tentatively venturing from all sides to pester the bull by throwing verbal taunts and plastic bottles or waving any scraps of red they’ve managed to come by for the occasion: handkerchiefs, ball caps, t-shirt pieces.  When the torro turns, everyone scrambles.  Repeat.  Eventually the rider falls or tires and signals for the bull to be lassoed in.

The whole process is as undeniably cruel as it is fascinating.  I’m not sure if I continue to watch because I can’t quite believe there are regular people running around in an enclosed space with a huge bull yielding huge horns which has been purposely enraged by the cinching of its huge balls OR if it’s that an archaic grouping of un-evolved cells lodged deep in my brain stem has been activated and is waiting, no rooting for one of these regular people to be impaled on a huge horn of a huge bull whose huge balls have been cinched.  But watch I did, my enlightened self is embarrassed to admit, 12 of these episodes, though by the ninth or tenth one the novelty (or the revulsion) had worn off. 

As it has taken this whole post to share with you two hours of last weekend’s visit to Pedro’s hometown of Masatepe, you might understand why we returned and chose this city as home for at least the next month.  We can think of anyplace better to be an UnTourist!