The Criolla

Teo, April 3, 2015

On Tuesday, we went on a little trip to a rodeo in Montevideo.  The rodeo is called the criolla, and it happens every year in the week before Easter.  It was very crowded when we got off the bus, and it was too loud.  I thought my ears were going to explode into a thousand pieces.  There were people trying to give us fliers about political candidates.  So we walked down the street a little bit, and went through some gates, and then we got to the ticket booth.  Our mom bought some tickets for us and we went inside a big fairgrounds.  There were lots of people trying to sell things like t-shirts, gaucho hats, saddles, and lots of cheap toys.

We went into the arena where there were lots of people, and we got ourselves a seat.  Right as we got there, they started the event.  There was a guy who was talking gibberish on the loudspeaker; you couldn't hear anything he said.  He was announcing the gauchos, and at that very moment, a gaucho rode out with the Uruguayan flag, and rode as fast as he could on his horse, making a circle around the ring.  The crowd was clapping and cheering.

A few minutes later, two gauchos came out with a wild horse.  A competitor got on the horse and a bell went ding-ding-ding, and the horse took off.  It was flinging around and jumping up and down, trying to get the guy off.  Then another ding-ding-ding and the same two people who had brought out the horse rode up right next to the wild horse and the competitor jumped onto one of the guy's horses and the wild horse ran straight out of the ring.

We watched the same thing for an hour or so.  Sometimes the rider got thrown off, and the crowd gasped and then applauded.

There was a break and so we got out of our seats and looked around the fair.  Javy played a game where you took a balloon out of a machine and each balloon had a number inside. The number told what little trinket you would get.  Javy got a wristband and a wallet.  He really wanted the wristband, and he was really happy after he got it.

When we got back to the arena, we took our seats again and this time I noticed that the competitors were not using saddles.  These horses were wilder than the others, and more of the competitors were being thrown off.  We watched for a little bit longer, and then we decided to leave.  We left the fairgrounds and got on a bus and went home.