This weekend, Juarez will host one of its rarest events in recent history: a Sunday bullfight.
Sundays used to be the traditional day for bullfights. Ernest Hemingway never went to a bullfight that happened at any time but Sunday afternoons. But bullfights aren’t as popular these days as they used to be, so bullfight promoters moved the spectacles to Friday and Saturday nights.
Except for the bullfight taking place this Sunday.
In 1957, entrepreneurs opened the second biggest bullring in all of Mexico in Ciudad Juarez: The Plaza Monumental. They closed that venue in 2006, before the bullring celebrated it’s 50th birthday and become eligible for historic preservation. Now there’s a Walmart Super Center where the bullring used to stand. Juarez has the only Walmart Super Center in the world with a big bronze bullfighting sculpture in front of it.
This Sunday’s bullfight will take place at 5pm at the Plaza de Toros Alberto Balderas in downtown Juarez. It’s right next to the under-construction Torre Sentinela, at the corner of Abraham Gonzalez and Francisco Villa, aka Ferrocarril.
Bullfighting is barbaric, but for that matter, so is hamburger. Aficionados consistently argue that fighting bulls have a much better life than the beef that passes through feedlots, and, eventually, your digestive tract.
The headlining torero is Andy Cartagena, a rejoneador. A rejoneador is a guy who fights bulls from horseback.
Rejoneando is kind of like ballet, except with horses and bulls and swords.
The card is complemented by Juan Luis Silis, a torero and tamalero (that’s right, he sells tamales), and El Chihuahua, who, on a lot of bills, would be the headliner.
If you only see one bullfight this year, or, for that matter, in your life, this might be the one to catch.