Bulls will be bulls

As a coda to our Christmas vacation, last week we took a road trip to Fujairah, which is little town sitting on the coast of the Indian Ocean north east of us. The reason for the trip was to see if we could catch the massively popular, weekly tradition of bull butting.  This is using the bulls own natural aggression for them to fight each other in short bouts so there isn't any death or gore. This tradition came from Portuguese traders who were here in the 16th century and has kept on till today. 

Details on where and when this happens are sketchy at best so we roughly knew that it happened on Friday afternoons at about 4pm, only in winter and somewhere down on the Corniche. We had one try at finding this to no avail, and armed with a little more info, tried again the next week and struck it lucky. These are Brahma bulls especially bred for their size (about 2,000 lbs for a full grown one) and all the owners are extremely proud.

The bulls are standing in holes of their own making; there was lots of snorting, braying and pawing at the ground which results in these holes and piles of dirt over whomever is unlucky enough to be standing behind them!

The locals seem to take proximity to these massive, testosterone laden creatures as no big deal as you can see from the folks sitting above. There are even a long line of judges sitting in plastic garden chairs in the ring itself, but we wisely stayed on the outside of the ring. 

I say wisely outside the ring, because when these bulls go at each other, there isn't enough cash anywhere to get me as close as these guys were.

This bull waiting his turn seemed to be particularly eager with lots of snorting and pawing. Perhaps it was his ringside seat on the action.

The bouts are about 3-4 minutes each with lots of shouting from the judges, the owners and all the families around the ring. We had no idea how a winner was determined, but as Matthew said it really was rather like watching Nascar where the main attraction is waiting for the crash, or in this case the runaway bulls (of which there were a couple) plowing through the crowd!