Bullfights, Flowers, and a Country Drive

In much of Spain, and some of Portugal too, they still hold bullfights.  These are sporting and thrilling if you're the one with the knives, not so much for the bulls.  The bulls are effectively tortured and then killed.

Another ancient form of the bullfight is the Tourada à Corda, or "bullfight by rope".  The bulls are controlled (to some extent) by ropes tied to their horns while the crowd taunts and teases them.  It's still a dangerous event which tests the participants' nerve, skill, speed, and luck.  When the event is over the bulls, uninjured, are sent back to pasture rather than being killed.

In Ponte de Lima the version of Tourada à Corda is called Vaca das Cordas, and it has been going on for centuries.  It is an annual event, and was held this year on June 18.  The bull is pulled through three turns around an ancient church in the historic town center (shown here), then is brought down to a sandy area next to the Lima river until sundown.  It is a huge affair for locals all around and tourists too.

We got great seats on a stone bulkhead facing the sandy area at the end of the bull run.  People lined up along the medieval bridge by the hundreds to watch too.  Before long, however, so many people had crowded into our area that it was impossible to see anything.  Our friends Maayan and Dan had joined us by this time.  The late afternoon sun was sweltering and the Vaca das Cordas hadn't yet begun.  Since we couldn't see anything anyway through the dense crowd we decided to bail out.

We got seats at a restaurant near the church which the bull was due to circle.  A throng of excited people had already crowded around the church.  Suddenly a cry went up, and since Gerrit was the only one who could get out from our table he went into the throng to see if he could see anything.

And again he was stymied.  People were on others' shoulders, everyone's arms were stretched high with cell phone cameras, and it was impossible to see anything.  The bull was finally there, judging by people's responses, where their cell phones pointed, and the small panicked stampedes of them, but nary a horn was visible.  Dan came out for a while and had a little better luck, but still only a glimpse.

If we're going to see this legendary event next year, we will have to be much more clever.  This year though, we had to just shrug and simply enjoy our dinner out with friends.  Here are a couple shots of the town after the sun had set and the bull had gone home (with a wild tale to tell his friends at his next bull session).

The crowd there was by far the largest we have seen in Ponte de Lima.  It was more like something you would see in a larger city.  There was also a huge stage and sound system set up, which was playing thunderous upbeat pop and Latin most of the time we were there and into the night.  We could still hear it thumping when we got home, about 7 km (4.3 mi) from the stage.  Not loud enough to keep us awake, but it went on until 3 AM!  Party time in Ponte de Lima.

Here is a great video put together by the municipality of Ponte de Lima of the entire event, so you can see what we missed.

The next day, Thursday June 19, was Corpus Christi, a major Catholic holiday.  It is marked all over Portugal with "tapetes de floridos", or carpets of flowers in the streets.  Elaborate pictures and patterns are drawn on the streets with colored sand, colored sawdust, and actual flower petals.  Then a procession from the same church which hosted the bull the previous night marches right over the carpets, obliterating them.  It's a way to remind yourself that everything is transitory and not to get caught up in your ego.  Other cultures and religions around the world have similar ceremonies of elaborate construction and then immediate destruction.

We had a pretty good vantage point at the main door of the church to watch the procession as it started, but next time we will post ourselves somewhere along the procession route.  It would be a reflective lesson to watch those beautiful carpets being destroyed too.

As we waited for the procession to start, we struck up conversations with some of our fellow procession watchers, including a Portuguese woman who currently lives in Massachusetts but was visiting back home.  Her English was excellent, as you might expect.  We also chatted with another tiny old man, a survivor of the Salazar regime.  His Portuguese was very difficult to understand, but we overheard the woman next to Pat speaking a very clear and distinct version, much of which we caught.  It will be easier to understand some natives before others, just like in any language.

There was much more pageantry than shown in the video below, but much of it didn't come out.  We hope you like marching bands.

On Friday June 20 we girded our loins and set out to get our National Health Service (SNS) registration numbers.  This is the mostly free public health care network which is universally available to citizens and residents.  We will use the network, and we also need SNS numbers for other things like driver's licenses.

We found our way to the Ponte de Lima Health Center, where SNS numbers are assigned.  It took three tries at three different clinics before we found the right department, then dumb luck to find the correct administrator.  Signage all over was pretty sparse.  The secretary pointed to a posted list of documents required, all of which we had except a list of our vaccinations.  Printed.  On paper.  None of that, of course, is specified anywhere and seems to be unique to this Ponte de Lima clinic.  The administrator was friendly but firm, so back home we trudged to dig that information up and print it out.  Or maybe go to another clinic. 

On Sunday June 22 we got lots of chores done around the pool and garden since it was cool and would be hot later.  After lunch we set out on one of our favorite pastimes: driving small country roads with no idea where we're going.  We turned north from the nearby village of Refóios do Lima and wandered through tiny lanes and country roads.  Here are some shots from the drive.

And on Monday June 23 we returned to the Health Center to try again with our vaccination documents included this time.  The same friendly secretary was there, but now we learned that they won't scan our passports and registration cards, we need to provide printed paper copies of them too.  Maybe she told us that last time and we missed it.  Anyway, we went to a nearby copy center, had a delightful chat in mostly Portuguese with the clerk there while our copies were made, returned to the clinic, and seconds later we were on our way.  We will be notified when our actual SNS numbers are ready.  All we had to do was get every one of our documentation ducks in a row and they paddled right through the gate.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

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