Volunteers in the Bull Pitt?

Tyler and I took a night bus to Quito, and at 8:30AM we arrived well rested and ready to tour the city. After running around the city all day finding as many churches to see and Basilicas and hills to climb, we stumbled upon a semi free bull fight that night. Although these fighters were amateurs, we were constantly surprised how close they could get the bull to goring them. It was a great event with the community, and we thought we really learned something about the culture.

After all of the fighters had their chance with the bulls, the announcer started to wrap things up. He said that the bull fighting was over, but then he asked for volunteers. Ty and I got ready to get up and leave, but after looking around, we saw that not one person in the audience was planning on leaving early. Okay, so the volunteer thing must be pretty intertaining, but what could it be?

The announcer got two teams of five guys each to volunteer. One team was the jovenes, aged from 20-35, and the other team was the viejos, men from 35-50. They stood at opposite ends of the ring, and they set up two sets of cones like they were about to stay for a soccer match. Ty and I thought about leaving again, but everyone in the audience remained in their seats. The announcer then did something that shocked the hell out of me. Remember, we are not in the United States, so there is no such thing as liability here. The announcer brought out a bull with the volunteers in the ring! The game was for the volunteers to try and get the bull to chase them through their goal. The team that could get the bull to run through their goal the most would win.

What happened next was one of the scarriest and most hilarious moments in my Ecuador experience so far. We watched grown men run out into the ring, try to attract the bull´s attencion, and then run back to safety behind the boards as fast as they could. We watched the bull run after unarmed men, and if the bull was close to gorring a guy in the butt, we would watch the man leap over the wall and fly headfirst into safety on the other side. Just imagine a 40 year old, slightly overweight, Ecuadorian man running as fast as he can with a bull on its heals and then soaring over a wall only to land face first on the other side. Remarkably, no one got seriously injured, and everyone seemed to have a good time.