This weekend, I went an a road trip to Fujairah, the most Eastern of the seven emirates making up the UAE. I arrived in time for a very entertaining and unique local spectacle.Friday early evening (ask five different locals and you get five different starting times), there is a series of bull fights in a place close to the beach. An enthusiastic crowd of several hundred people - mostly locals, mostly men - gathers around a sandy arena to see bulls fight each other, pitting their strengths against the other animal until one gives up. A jury decides about the winner.
It's an experience very different from the bull-fighting you may know from Spain - it's less orchestrated, the bulls are hardly hurt, it's not man against animal, but animal against animal; and, above all, the whole thing has a refreshing amateur-style "let's just meet and have fun" feel to it. There is no betting, no big winner ceremony - the winning bull just becomes more valuable and its owner gains reputation.
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The really entertaining bit is when the men have to try to separate the bulls after the jury has decided about the winner. The animals can be hard to control and even harder to predict in their behavior, leading to some almost cartoon-ish but also breath-taking scenes. Sometimes, up to 20 or so men rush on the field, grabbing for the bulls' rope and pulling the fighters apart. Sometimes they have to run for their safety, escaping the agitated bulls' horns only by a few centimeters.
But no one was injured. This time...
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