Touro! Touro!

While in the Algarve, we saw a poster for a bullfighting spectacle not too far from our hotel. We decided to check it out even though we knew it would not have the same formality of a bullfight in the national bull ring in Lisbon. Portuguese bullfighting is very different from the Spanish variety, but we'll talk about that in a future post. The event we went to was in a temporary ring that had been erected in a field just outside of the town near where we were staying. We noticed immediately that it was much smaller than a normal ring. It looked interesting and they had a beer stand, so we decided to join the fun. The first act consisted of four "bullfighters" who would jump over a charging bull. Athletically, it was pretty impressive. Check out the video.

The second part was a guy on a four-wheeler, driving around in circles and trying to get the bull to charge him. That was just sad.

And the third part was just stupid. It was called the "table of terror." They asked for volunteers from the audience. I had to put my foot down and tell Hillary that she couldn't volunteer, even though I didn't know how ridiculous it would be. We later learned after all of the volunteers were seated at tables in the middle of the ring that the winner of the competition would be the last person seated. They then let a bull loose in the ring who would charge and flip the seated people. Check out the video.

From there it progressed to amateur hour, with people hopping the fence to test their bravery against the bull. All in all, it was a pretty entertaining spectacle.