| One of the highlights of our stay in Terceira was attending a �Tourada-a-Corda,� a street bullfight on a rope, in the village of Terra Cha. Almost each village on Terceira ended its summer festival with this form of popular entertainment, and Terra Cha was no exception. Everyone that had houses on the street had attached wooden barricades to their fences in preparation for the big event, and so we actually watched from someone�s front yard. The bull came down the street at the end of a long rope held by two groups of five men. Their role was to try to keep the bull under some form of control as it traveled down the street being teased by local men who approached the bull as close as they dared and then ran and jumped the barricades to safety. Each �Tourada-a-Corda� had four bulls, and each bull appeared for 30 minutes. Between the second and third bulls, there was a half hour intermission. To keep everyone safe, one blast signified that the bull was out of his box, and two blasts meant that the bull was back in his box. |
