| España | 13 - 27 August 2003 |
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Chiva, 19 August. |
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 Buñol, 20 August |
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| Baby Alvaro with dad and mum, 26 August. | ||
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Buñol, Sunday 24 August, the Rice Festival. |
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| The bull of the cord | |||
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I never liked being
in a crowd. Never liked running with the crowd, shouting with the crowd.
Never. Only ever went to a couple of concerts and never went to a
football match. No, I never wanted to be in the crowd or one of the
crowd, never enjoyed it at all until just now, here in Spain in a small
town outside Valencia called Chiva. Mandy and I are guests of Luis Miguel and his wife Monica. Luis Miguel is a gentle giant of a man who, except for his skin colour not being green, looks for all the world like the incredible hulk. His Charles Atlas physique comes from a regime of working out which began at the tender age of eleven when he was chosen for after-school training by the Valencia football club. Ten Years later at the age of twenty-one, he was selected to play in Valencia's first team and did so for three years - at mid field - until a recurring back problem forced early retirement in 1993. And so Luis Miguel got to step down out of a life of some fame and notoriety - and the only world he had ever known, football - into more mundane and certainly more obscure pursuits. Anyway that has nothing to do with me enjoying being in a crowd. It's nothing to do with Luis Miguel, it's the bull.... |
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When we first walked
around the olde-worldy town of Chiva, I remarked that crime must be
really bad around here because there was such robust protective ironwork
outside shops and banks, mounted on giant hinges so they could be swung
into place. I thought that sleepy Chiva must be a community targeted by
ram-raiders and the like: 'Ah no Dave - that is to protect against the bull.' 'The bull?' 'Yes once a year the bull runs through the town.' 'A bull runs through the streets of the town?' 'Yes.' 'Ah I see - and the people watch safely behind these iron barricades?' 'Yes some do, but many people also run with the bull.' 'Pardon me, they run with the bull?' ..... Would you believe there are just two towns in Spain where they do this - run with the bull through the streets that is - and yes this is one of them. And yes it is a cheeky, hair-brained thing to do. It just so happens that our time here coincides with the 'festival of the bull' which lasts about a week. Because we are guests of Luis Mi we got invited to some plum locations, one of which was a sort of 'pit stop' - a house where bull and runners stop for a breather. I should explain that the bull has a line attached to his horns - the festival is actually called 'el Torico de la cuerda' which roughly translates as 'the bull of the cord.' The 'cord' is a gaily coloured rope to which various spaniards of suicidal frame of mind hold on to, and pull the bull along to begin with. But when that bull starts running, there is no way to stay ahead of it. The bull runs much faster than any man, and he quickly overtakes the pullers of the cord who end up being pullees instead. Fortunately, the bull cannot keep going at full tilt for very long and soon slows down or stops for a breather. |
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| Where
was I - yes we were waiting for the bull at somebody´s house. The front
door opens straight on to the narrow street - oh I suppose it's wide
enough to get my Vauxhall down minus the wing mirrors. Suddenly the men
with the rope come crashing through the entrance with the bull in hot
pursuit. They slam the door behind them and wrap the rope around a
staunchion on the doorpost. I think the idea is to hold the bull close
to the building so he cannot get a run at it! We reached through the iron grill of the door to stroke him as he stands there (cutchy-coo, there´s a nice bully wully). He is panting, his tongue flailing in the warm August heat while his eyes consider us with apparent disdain. There we all are, prisoners in the courtyard of this house with the nice bully-wully at the door. |
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| All is
under control, no problem.... until they unwrap the rope ready to
continue the bull run... It all happened so quickly - the bull rams the door, the men holding the cord go flying and suddenly the door is open, the bull has got his head inside, everyone in the house is screaming and running in one direction - I join them. (Excuse me, is this the way to the toilet?) For a full second it is like a scene from Jurassic Park until the bull-runners recover the initiative and pile their bodies against the door, it´s their weight versus the bull. After some heart-stopping moments they have sorted the situation out and managed to maneouvre bull, rope and people who know what they are doing into the desired place and then... Whoosh! - Off they all go with the bull leading at warp factor ten down the tiny street with it seems, all of Chiva following behind at high speed in a cloud of shouting. |
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| It is all rather like being caught up in a light-hearted version of the storming of the Bastille. A quite unique snapshot of communal fun Iberian style, of the whole town coming together in a way that I guess only exists in England in some point of crisis. To the locals this is a community sport, and sport it certainly is although not exactly 'sporting' in the English sense as the bull is extremely unlikely to win the contest. It is after all a town of ten thousand against one but the odds are not ten thousand to one, and therein lies the sport. For that powerful, wily beast gets his day and gets to call the shots. In every way the bull is the star of the show. On a later occasion I learned how cunning these guys can be: Checking out the situation - casing you -while looking nakkered is one of their party tricks, and they can suddenly move with surprising speed and purpose to administer the coup de grace - the five-ton horn up your backside. | |||
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Anyway, this year I
am told that the 'cuerda' - the cord - must be at least 14 metres long,
by edict of Brussels or local council, I don´t know which. This is
because while the bull-run progresses around the town, people are in the
habit of cutting bits off it as a memento and so the cord gets shorter
and shorter. So it has to start off an adequate length to allow for
that... I must own up - they´ve cut me a bit of it which I am bringing home and will treasure. |
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