Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia
Sunday, January 29, 2006
This entry is not at all about
Bogota, but is entirely about the cockfight I attended the other night. Around 10 p.m. Friday night I was at my hostel reading, and it crossed my mind that I had never attended a cockfight during this trip. Whether or not they exist in other countries, I am not sure, but I was pretty positive that they took place all over Colombia. But, who can I extract the necessary information from? I asked an employee at the hostel, and he had no idea, even seeming repulsed by the thought of it. But, it was his job to give information about the city to travelers, so he opened up a binder that was labeled: Useful Information. Under the heading Cockfight was listed the name of the venue (Club Gallistico San Miguel), the address, and the phone number. I had him call the venue to make sure that fights were taking place. Dialogue was difficult because on the other end there was quite a bit of noise and distraction, but we did find out that there would be fights until 3 a.m. So, I caught a cab and was walking into the venue at 11:00. Would it be like a bullfight, where there are a fixed number of fights, or would there be continuous battling? Well, I was pretty excited, but first had to buy my ticket. 10,000 pesos ($4) for a general admission seat. I found a decent area for visibility and then began to get my bearings. A fight was ending as I walked in. They retrieved the dead chicken, and the victor was taken away by his owner in order to have his wounds cleaned up and the blood washed off. Immediately the next two chickens were lowered into the ring from above via a pulley system. So the chickens were removed from the cages on the pulley, and then placed into two different cages that sat in the middle of the ring. But, before being put in their respective cages, the two ringleaders pick up the chickens and make them peck each other for a few seconds, just to agitate them and get them geared up for battle. At this point the bets are placed. There are two options now: Bet officially within the ring and the club, or just bet within the crowd with the people standing around you. The official bets had a standard rate, but the bets within the crowd could be whatever people settled on. When I left the official bet was at one million pesos, which is about $450. Some of the unofficial bets were around 20,000 pesos and up. So, the fight begins and the crowd is ready for their chicken to win them some money. This is when the yelling begins. I never understood the yelling, but when I saw just how much money was involved it made sense that someone would become so wrapped up in the event. Some of the fights could last five or ten minutes, but I saw one that lasted mere seconds. That particular victor was quite lethal and put his opponent away without wasting anyone´s time. The chickens have to fight to the death. If the losing chicken is unable to stand or their claws become entangled, then the ring leaders will briefly stop the fight, pick up the chickens, and reset the fight, placing the chickens in the middle of the ring. This process will continue until one of the chickens is dead. When the fight ends, the arena (maybe a capacity of 200 hundred people) fills with joy and anger. One man´s gain is another man´s loss. There are all types of people that attend this event. First, I was surprised that there were any women present. Then I was surprised that they were attractive and well-dressed. I had figured that their boyfriends (there were no single girls it seemed) dragged them there against their will, but then I saw the girls yelling and clapping and becoming just as involved as the men. It blew my mind. The other attendees came from all social classes: rich urban, rich rural, middle class urban, middle class rural, poor urban, and poor rural. One could see rich men hugging poor men after a winning fight because they were both so elated that they had just made a lot of cash. So, after a few fights I decided that I had had enough. Things were starting to get a little more rowdy after time passed and more beer had been consumed, and being the only gringo and the only tourist there, I figured that I was out of my element enough that I should call it a night and leave on a good note.
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You know, I rate this blog every time I get on and I still can't get that SOB above 4.8 stars. I think it's rigged -- just like South America is rigged. Lindsay