In the Azores, bull fights take on a new interpretation.
Bulls are brought out into the streets of the towns and the locals (after a few beers) will run up to the bull, taunt it, and then promptly be smashed by the bull! The locals take great joy in trying to cheat death as they run for their lives from a raging bull. They will taunt the bull with umbrellas to try and make the bull charge away from their bodies, but an angry bull is much smarter than a drunk human, and the bull usually knocks the drunk for a loop!
I began to wonder, are the bull here always like this? Or are they only irritated by the constant taunting from the drunk locals?
While hiking around, Maddie and I came across a field full of cows and one particularly large cow right by the low stone wall. We looked at each other and pet its head. It looked at us for a while as we smiled back, then it picked its nose with its tongue.
We didn’t realize the situation we were in until the large cow walked away from the wall and revealed to us that it was in fact a bull!
The bulls here are just as kind as the cows, and just like us, they don’t like to be taunted. If you do taunt the bulls, they are strong and will send you flying up into the sky before they fling your lifeless body into a stone wall!
If you ever get bored, you should check out the Azores Bull Fight videos on YouTube (no bulls are injured in the fights, only the local humans). After the bull fights, the bulls go home to their field where they continue being a bull and grazing in the pastures.
