So, what is the running of the bulls in Ayacucho? A stampede of irritated "torros" mindlessly tromping the streets of the city? Not quite. When we saw one man on a horse ride by with a bull tied by the horns to a rope in his hands we thought that was the warm-up act. Silly us. There were four bulls run by in this fashion. Just as a bull would get dangerously close to an observer the horse rider would yank the bull away. Mildly frightening, distinct from Pamplona or Peñiscola, Spain.
Between the visit from each bull and his liege the Peruvian observers in the plaza started to do something all too familiar. Just like I had observed in Spain, there were Peruvians building human castles!
Here is a photo that I took (that I actually won an award for in a UTexas photo contest, toot, toot) in Barcelona of the "Castell" a Spanish friend of mine was a part of:
Here is a photo of the non-professional Peruvian Castells:
So, what did the group of 15 Peace Corps Volunteers decide to do?
Yup, the smallest, yours truly, was thrown up top. Because we were the tallest three tiered tower, we quickly became minor celebrities in the crowd.
But the three-tiered tower was just too stable, and we had not seen anyone build a four tiered one. So, we put our engineering capabilities to the test and started building again. Once the third level of human bricks went up he crowd cheered because we had two people at the level that I was previously at as the peak. Then, as I started to climb up the crowd recognized me and went a little wild in anticipation.
Just as I got my knees on the back of the third tier, the entire castel gracefully collapsed landing us in a mountain of uninjured bodies. What a rush!
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