Here, a brave soul takes the reins and does their best to stay on a wildly flailing bull's back untill they are inevitably flung into the air.
These rodeos are full-day experiences. Before any of the colorful competitions or bull-riding takes place, there are soccer-tournaments, raffles, and cabalgatas. A cabalgata is basically a community-wide horse-ride, where a group of horseback travelers trek through the entire town and its surroundings from sunrise to sunset.
One last quick note... here in Guanacaste, there is a style of riding horses known as tope. If a horse is well-trained, it trots in a refined and elegant manner, almost as if it were marching. During rodeos there's always a competition to judge whose horse has the cleanest, most sophisticated tope. Throughout the entire year, you'll see horses "marching" through the streets as their riders prepare for these competitions!
These traditions are directly tied to Tronadora's agrarian culture. If you remember, farming and ranching are the backbone of the town's economy, so people here grow up riding horses, corralling bulls and shuffling calves from one field to another. Since Tronadora is hilly, it makes more sense to use horses to travel through fields and round up livestock, as opposed to tractors or cars.
Most rodeos in Costa Rica trace their roots back to a town called Santa Cruz. Every year, there is a week of wild fiestas and rodeos in Santa Cruz that draws visitors from all over the world. These rodeos feature the improvisadores, where anyone (crazy enough) can jump into the arena with a wild bull and tempt fate, all broadcast live on national T.V.!
