COCKFIGHTING; ISLA COCHE
La Guardia, Isla de Margarita, Venezuela, Friday, March 02, 2007
Cockfighting
After béisbol, baloncesto (basketball) and fútbol (in that order), one of the most popular sports in Venezuela is cockfighting. Every little town and village has a small sawdust-on-dirt ring measuring about twenty feet in diameter and surround by a few rows of bleachers. Jens takes Kathleen and me along with Sigrid (a guest from Bavaria at the posada) up to Fuentadueña, a small semi-mountain village above San Juan, for one of the regular Saturday rounds of fights.
The ring, La Gallera, is behind a row of houses and shaded by large mango trees and a sun roof. The afternoon is well under way when we arrive. Cockfighting is a man thing in Latin America, still home to other blood sports like dog and bullfighting. As we arrive a cockfight is already in progress. It elicits much excited shouting. Many of the guys are four sheets to the wind (at least). The shouting is, on the one hand, to cheer the red cockerel that is clearly winning, to encourage the losing white rooster, on the other hand, that is taking one hell of a shellacking and, finally, to place the many bets that are going on back and forth across the arena. Nobody is writing anything down, but I guess they are somehow able to keep track of things.
The white rooster is really getting the worst of things. He staggers around and falls over, seemingly unconscious. No Marquis of Queensbury Rules here, however! No counting out. It’s like bare-knuckle boxing: the fight goes on till somebody is dead or cannot get up any more. The red rooster pecks over and over again, sometimes grasping the neck of the downed opponent till he pulls him to his feet. Then the white one suddenly briefly comes alive though clearly he is very groggy and is staggering. Blood is falling onto the sawdust. Is he just playing dead from time to time? I want the referee to count him out and send everybody to the dressing rooms.
Instead, exhausted, the weakened bird collapses again. Twice the referee – Yep! there’s a referee! – blows his whistle when the white bird has lain motionless for a period of about thirty seconds. The two birds are then put back in a two-chamber box that is let down by rope from the ceiling. The white bird lies seemingly dead in his cage while the red one looks around calmly. Roosters, I observe, don’t actually have much facial expression so there doesn’t seem to be much gloating, no Mohamed Ali crowing (sic).
This whole time the betting is still going on at top volume across and around the ring. Will the white bird revive? Can he still win? The odds keep changing. The first time the box is used and ten seconds timed by the referee, the white cock must have moved a muscle, stimulating a total betting frenzy. The boxes are raised again and the fight continues – more frantic betting – though not for much longer. The second time the boxes are used, the white bird wisely stays motionless. I reckon he’s dead but my neighbour is not so sure.
Now comes the real test. The apparently dead or unconscious white rooster is taken from the cage and laid carefully on the ground a slight distance off. Then a completely fresh cockerel is presented to the motionless bird. If the motionless bird does not move - the betting is now reaching a real crescendo – the fight is over and the white cock will have lost outright. Frequently, however, the seemingly a difunto bird instinctively jumps up ready to do battle again. Talk about a stupid bird! That’s just what happened in this case. The result is that the cockfight is declared a draw, the owner of the white bird leaps ecstatically into ring and rescues his bird, jubilant that it is still alive and happy to have won some money.
Now everyone takes a break for half an hour. Most of the men have been drinking great quantities of beer and head out behind the shack for a pit stop. The smell of urine is strong. Thus enlightened, they head to a covered concrete platform nearby to get a fresh beer at the bar and to place bets on the horse races, the results of which are being either called in by cellphone or broadcast by radio, I can never make out which. There are a couple of bookies standing on the steps, calling out the odds and taking bets.
There are a few women around but ninety-nine percent of those in attendance are men, of which ninety-nine percent would not in any sane society be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Fortunately, most Venezuelans cannot yet afford a car. Ten percent of them can hardly stand. I wonder to myself if they are perhaps the car-owning minority here. Another ten percent might be sober but maybe they are just not showing the effects. One guy who we saw outside on the way here has refilled his nearly empty whisky bottle and is staggering around barefoot in the ring and getting in the way. We take lots of pictures of the guys, men of all ages, including boys of around nine or ten. Nobody objects. In fact they seem to love it and pose and laugh like school kids when they see the instant results.
Eventually some guys urge us back into the bleachers for the next round. Another white one and another red one. Fighting cocks have their backs plucked bare for some reason, their shanks too. They are lean and would not probably even soften up in a soup. Sometimes around town you will see some guy with his fighting cock out for a walk with a string tied to one leg so it doesn’t get away or get into trouble, or carrying it loveingly and stroking it gently.
The boxes are let down to the sawdust and the birds placed inside after spurs made out of rooster claws have been taped somehow to the ankles. The whistle goes, the cracked dilapidated kitchen-clock is checked and the fight is on. The avid betters are right in the ring with the birds trying to see what is going on in the melée, which at this point is just a blur of white and red wings. When they step back the birds have their necks stretched out horizontally, their beaks open and the feathers around their necks standing straight up. They go in for the clinch again, pecking and scratching and leaping into the air so they can bring their claws to bear to scratch and tear.
Within a minute or so the man next to me says that the white one is the stronger and will surely win. And, sure enough, not only does he win he actually breaks the neck of the red rooster and kills it. No draw here. The owner is jubilant and so are the winning bettors. We decide to leave.
Well, I guess I am slightly ashamed of myself for going to a blood-sport event. But I wanted to see local culture and this is part of it. It’s not a pretty sight to see and it’s to the death. But the men were without exception cheerful and friendly to us, even though, or because, most of them are pretty polluted. We take pictures of them proudly holding their roosters while they “crowed” about how many victories this bird or that bird had had already. I would wager that a lot of Venezolanos have alcohol and gambling problems.
So, been there! Done that! I reckon I shall skip it in the future.
Isla Coche
Together with our Canadian friends René and Francine and their friends Marie-Estella and Noëlle, all from Laval near Montreal, we book a boat ride yesterday in a peñero (roughly twenty-five-foot wooden motorboat of local design) to Isla Coche. Marie and Noëlle are staying at Jens’ posada; René and Francine have a rented apartment just down the street at Señor Romero’s beach house. We have come to enjoy their company and get together for a sundowner now and then.
Our peñero departs from a wooden dock at Playa El Yaque. I mention the dock because, in the three Latin American countries with which we are familiar - Mexico, Ecuador and Venezuela - actual docking facilities for pangas, peñeros, lanchas, or whatever local fishermen call their small, open boats, are remarkable for their absence. Instead of docking, fishermen either pull their boats up on the beach or anchor them slightly offshore. If they are Mexicans, perhaps I should add, and are therefore somewhat wealthier and have much bigger outboard motors, the fishermen simply drive their pangas full speed at the beach and come to a halt, propellers whining, above the waterline. Today there is a lot of waiting about, first for a jeep-drawn tourist buggy to take us about two hundred and fifty metres to the dock and then for the boat from Isla Coche to pick us up. Fortunately we have a reservation. Those without have to wait.
The trip across takes half an hour at good speed driven by two 200 horsepower Japanese outboard engines. Half of the passengers are tourists, the remainder locals. Although technically an open boat, this peñero has a wooden sunroof and plastic side curtains. The reason for the latter becomes apparent on the way back in mid-afternoon. By that time the wind has picked up and waves with whitecaps are rolling down the bay. The boat’s fast motion throws up spray that the wind then drives back against the windward side of the boat.
Since Marie-Estella is currently waiting for operations on her knees and is therefore not able to walk much, the trip is basically to sample the glaring white beaches on Isla Coche. To this end we take a dip in the crystal clear and somewhat cool water and then crawl under one of the sunbather awnings. The breezes ameliorate the intense heat but not the glare. The island is about 11 x 6 km. long, so much smaller than Margarita. But, along with Playa el Yaque, it is famous for its steady and strong winds and therefore an attraction for wind- and kite-surfers. By early afternoon the waters off the beach where we were getting our sunburn is full of colourful sails. The beach sand is like wheaten floor, white and fine.
Comparing notes, Kathleen and I realise that we have not ever actually spent any part of a day just lying on a beach and certainly not to get a suntan – not at least since we moved aboard Vilisar five and one-half years ago. While our friends are actually sprawled out on lounges to get the full impact of mid-day sunbeams, we stay in the shade and even cover up a bit. We still get sunburnt, though. I guess the glare off the beach and the water was enough to do that.
We also realise that we are completely unfamiliar with tours and organised tourism. I find it strange to wait for so long for transportation and lining up for things like the lunch buffet at a playa restaurant. But we thoroughly enjoy being with our friends and practising our French after so many years.
La Guardia, Isla de Margarita, Venezuela, Friday, March 02, 2007
Cockfighting
After béisbol, baloncesto (basketball) and fútbol (in that order), one of the most popular sports in Venezuela is cockfighting. Every little town and village has a small sawdust-on-dirt ring measuring about twenty feet in diameter and surround by a few rows of bleachers. Jens takes Kathleen and me along with Sigrid (a guest from Bavaria at the posada) up to Fuentadueña, a small semi-mountain village above San Juan, for one of the regular Saturday rounds of fights.
The ring, La Gallera, is behind a row of houses and shaded by large mango trees and a sun roof. The afternoon is well under way when we arrive. Cockfighting is a man thing in Latin America, still home to other blood sports like dog and bullfighting. As we arrive a cockfight is already in progress. It elicits much excited shouting. Many of the guys are four sheets to the wind (at least). The shouting is, on the one hand, to cheer the red cockerel that is clearly winning, to encourage the losing white rooster, on the other hand, that is taking one hell of a shellacking and, finally, to place the many bets that are going on back and forth across the arena. Nobody is writing anything down, but I guess they are somehow able to keep track of things.
The white rooster is really getting the worst of things. He staggers around and falls over, seemingly unconscious. No Marquis of Queensbury Rules here, however! No counting out. It’s like bare-knuckle boxing: the fight goes on till somebody is dead or cannot get up any more. The red rooster pecks over and over again, sometimes grasping the neck of the downed opponent till he pulls him to his feet. Then the white one suddenly briefly comes alive though clearly he is very groggy and is staggering. Blood is falling onto the sawdust. Is he just playing dead from time to time? I want the referee to count him out and send everybody to the dressing rooms.
Instead, exhausted, the weakened bird collapses again. Twice the referee – Yep! there’s a referee! – blows his whistle when the white bird has lain motionless for a period of about thirty seconds. The two birds are then put back in a two-chamber box that is let down by rope from the ceiling. The white bird lies seemingly dead in his cage while the red one looks around calmly. Roosters, I observe, don’t actually have much facial expression so there doesn’t seem to be much gloating, no Mohamed Ali crowing (sic).
This whole time the betting is still going on at top volume across and around the ring. Will the white bird revive? Can he still win? The odds keep changing. The first time the box is used and ten seconds timed by the referee, the white cock must have moved a muscle, stimulating a total betting frenzy. The boxes are raised again and the fight continues – more frantic betting – though not for much longer. The second time the boxes are used, the white bird wisely stays motionless. I reckon he’s dead but my neighbour is not so sure.
Now comes the real test. The apparently dead or unconscious white rooster is taken from the cage and laid carefully on the ground a slight distance off. Then a completely fresh cockerel is presented to the motionless bird. If the motionless bird does not move - the betting is now reaching a real crescendo – the fight is over and the white cock will have lost outright. Frequently, however, the seemingly a difunto bird instinctively jumps up ready to do battle again. Talk about a stupid bird! That’s just what happened in this case. The result is that the cockfight is declared a draw, the owner of the white bird leaps ecstatically into ring and rescues his bird, jubilant that it is still alive and happy to have won some money.
Now everyone takes a break for half an hour. Most of the men have been drinking great quantities of beer and head out behind the shack for a pit stop. The smell of urine is strong. Thus enlightened, they head to a covered concrete platform nearby to get a fresh beer at the bar and to place bets on the horse races, the results of which are being either called in by cellphone or broadcast by radio, I can never make out which. There are a couple of bookies standing on the steps, calling out the odds and taking bets.
There are a few women around but ninety-nine percent of those in attendance are men, of which ninety-nine percent would not in any sane society be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Fortunately, most Venezuelans cannot yet afford a car. Ten percent of them can hardly stand. I wonder to myself if they are perhaps the car-owning minority here. Another ten percent might be sober but maybe they are just not showing the effects. One guy who we saw outside on the way here has refilled his nearly empty whisky bottle and is staggering around barefoot in the ring and getting in the way. We take lots of pictures of the guys, men of all ages, including boys of around nine or ten. Nobody objects. In fact they seem to love it and pose and laugh like school kids when they see the instant results.
Eventually some guys urge us back into the bleachers for the next round. Another white one and another red one. Fighting cocks have their backs plucked bare for some reason, their shanks too. They are lean and would not probably even soften up in a soup. Sometimes around town you will see some guy with his fighting cock out for a walk with a string tied to one leg so it doesn’t get away or get into trouble, or carrying it loveingly and stroking it gently.
The boxes are let down to the sawdust and the birds placed inside after spurs made out of rooster claws have been taped somehow to the ankles. The whistle goes, the cracked dilapidated kitchen-clock is checked and the fight is on. The avid betters are right in the ring with the birds trying to see what is going on in the melée, which at this point is just a blur of white and red wings. When they step back the birds have their necks stretched out horizontally, their beaks open and the feathers around their necks standing straight up. They go in for the clinch again, pecking and scratching and leaping into the air so they can bring their claws to bear to scratch and tear.
Within a minute or so the man next to me says that the white one is the stronger and will surely win. And, sure enough, not only does he win he actually breaks the neck of the red rooster and kills it. No draw here. The owner is jubilant and so are the winning bettors. We decide to leave.
Well, I guess I am slightly ashamed of myself for going to a blood-sport event. But I wanted to see local culture and this is part of it. It’s not a pretty sight to see and it’s to the death. But the men were without exception cheerful and friendly to us, even though, or because, most of them are pretty polluted. We take pictures of them proudly holding their roosters while they “crowed” about how many victories this bird or that bird had had already. I would wager that a lot of Venezolanos have alcohol and gambling problems.
So, been there! Done that! I reckon I shall skip it in the future.
Isla Coche
Together with our Canadian friends René and Francine and their friends Marie-Estella and Noëlle, all from Laval near Montreal, we book a boat ride yesterday in a peñero (roughly twenty-five-foot wooden motorboat of local design) to Isla Coche. Marie and Noëlle are staying at Jens’ posada; René and Francine have a rented apartment just down the street at Señor Romero’s beach house. We have come to enjoy their company and get together for a sundowner now and then.
Our peñero departs from a wooden dock at Playa El Yaque. I mention the dock because, in the three Latin American countries with which we are familiar - Mexico, Ecuador and Venezuela - actual docking facilities for pangas, peñeros, lanchas, or whatever local fishermen call their small, open boats, are remarkable for their absence. Instead of docking, fishermen either pull their boats up on the beach or anchor them slightly offshore. If they are Mexicans, perhaps I should add, and are therefore somewhat wealthier and have much bigger outboard motors, the fishermen simply drive their pangas full speed at the beach and come to a halt, propellers whining, above the waterline. Today there is a lot of waiting about, first for a jeep-drawn tourist buggy to take us about two hundred and fifty metres to the dock and then for the boat from Isla Coche to pick us up. Fortunately we have a reservation. Those without have to wait.
The trip across takes half an hour at good speed driven by two 200 horsepower Japanese outboard engines. Half of the passengers are tourists, the remainder locals. Although technically an open boat, this peñero has a wooden sunroof and plastic side curtains. The reason for the latter becomes apparent on the way back in mid-afternoon. By that time the wind has picked up and waves with whitecaps are rolling down the bay. The boat’s fast motion throws up spray that the wind then drives back against the windward side of the boat.
Since Marie-Estella is currently waiting for operations on her knees and is therefore not able to walk much, the trip is basically to sample the glaring white beaches on Isla Coche. To this end we take a dip in the crystal clear and somewhat cool water and then crawl under one of the sunbather awnings. The breezes ameliorate the intense heat but not the glare. The island is about 11 x 6 km. long, so much smaller than Margarita. But, along with Playa el Yaque, it is famous for its steady and strong winds and therefore an attraction for wind- and kite-surfers. By early afternoon the waters off the beach where we were getting our sunburn is full of colourful sails. The beach sand is like wheaten floor, white and fine.
Comparing notes, Kathleen and I realise that we have not ever actually spent any part of a day just lying on a beach and certainly not to get a suntan – not at least since we moved aboard Vilisar five and one-half years ago. While our friends are actually sprawled out on lounges to get the full impact of mid-day sunbeams, we stay in the shade and even cover up a bit. We still get sunburnt, though. I guess the glare off the beach and the water was enough to do that.
We also realise that we are completely unfamiliar with tours and organised tourism. I find it strange to wait for so long for transportation and lining up for things like the lunch buffet at a playa restaurant. But we thoroughly enjoy being with our friends and practising our French after so many years.
posted by rjb @ Sunday, March 04, 2007
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