There's not much to see in La Gloria, Texas. Located in the Rio Grande Valley, the town is unincorporated and has a population just shy of 200 souls. The last time I was there, the La Gloria Cafe was the only place to eat, unless you were willing to walk up to someone's home and ask them to make you a sandwich. What it does have in spades, however, are stressed-out bulls, toreros of both sexes, and an open-air Plaza de Toros.
Earnest Hemingway wrote that a bullfighter needed to have a spiritual enjoyment of the moment of killing–joy from giving a bull an elegant, clean death. Blood as spectacle. But that's bullshit as far as the folks at the Santa Maria Bullring are concerned. They don't hurt their animals. Save a rope wrapped around the bovine's balls to make 'em mean, the bulls are scarcely touched at all.
The arena has been holding bloodless corrida de toros since 1998. I attended my first fight in 2016. It's always hot in Texas. It used to be that you'd pray for a seat in the bleachers that shielded you from the sun. Since Santa Maria was sold to a new owner in 2003, you can pay an additional five bucks on top of your ticket price to secure a shaded seat. There's food. There's ice-cold sodas, there's a mix of bored-looking white farmers, Mexican families who can trace their line back to before the border moved, and eager men and women dressed in their best traje de luces, pressed, clean, and fresh, despite the dust of the ring and the Texas heat. They've come from as far as Spain and as close as Reynosa to try their luck with 4,000 pounds of pissed off meat.
There are scarce few places you can still catch a bullfight. It's even rarer to see one where the animals go unhurt. If you're in deep south Texas and can spare the time, it's a spectacle worth tracking down.
Images via Séamus Bellamy
Previously:
• Lady in red triggers bullfight chase at André Rieu concert
• Bullfight crowd panics when bull jumps over barrier
• Powerful anti-bullfighting PSA uses CGI dinosaur
