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Now living in l'Olleria, south of Valencia

Sunday 7 October 2012

l'Olleria Bous

As usual, we went to see the l'olleria version of the bull running this year. Whilst this is nowhere near as good as Aielo, we should support our local fiestas.

This year, the ring was a bit different, with an additional stand having been installed. There seemed to be less people than previously though, and we had no trouble parking ourselves on the railing, with our feet (just) out of harms way.


The bulls are brought up to do this sort of thing, and the council pay the 'taurinos' for the hire of the bulls. The more agressive the bull, the more the price of the hiring. There is a well known bull 'El Raton' that has actually killed several people over the years. His appearance can be secured for several thousands of euros, for just 10 minuts of 'entertainment'. In our case, this year, I think the council shelled out a couple of hundred euros for the whole 4 days! Things were rather quiet.

During the event, two of the bulls were able to climb onto the table, one of them with as much dexterity as the people that thought they were safe up there! That was rather funny. One of them decided to attach a large tyre, and managed to shift it all around the ring. It took 3 men to pick it up again, onto it's side, so they could roll it back to the original position.



There was one person, who had bought a dog to the event. Although the dog was on a leash, out of the ring itself, it was under the stands, where the bull could sniff it and react. To say that the bull wanted the dog, was putting it mildly. The dog, too decided it didn't like the bull either, and barked like mad at it. This was highly entertaing for most people, but, in fact, this was about 5 feet away from me - rather too close for comfort.



This year, on two of the days the bulls had their horns lit up 'embolat', which was unusual.



Thankfully, there was only one minor injury during the whole week, so maybe quiet cows are a better idea really!

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