Otavalo, Ecuador

An Evening at the Cockfight

January 13, 2008

- Funkadelic

Sometimes they say that life is stranger than fiction. As I stood outside the bathroom next to the cock fighting pit looking at newspaper clippings and talking to a man about his friend in the photos, who of happens to be a world champion speed walker at multiple distances, and how he trains in the high altitude mountains outside of Otavalo, I was reminded of how true that is.

But perhaps such is one´s trip to see a cock fight, especially the one in Otavalo. After confirming the location of the pit with two locals, I was given conflicting starting times and was forced to check at each time because so as to secure a good seat. I waited as the market wound down and the mass exodus from town had commenced with all the sellers packing up their wares and leaving.

I wasn´t too sure what the refreshments situation would be like at the cock fight, whether it would be like sporting events in the United States where they have hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, and beer and soda, perhaps even chicken fingers in this case, or whether it would be more of a bring your own type of event. With some other travelers we showed up with a few beers and snacks but the building still wasn´t open so we decided to go hang out in the park and check back an hour later. Again it was still closed. Another hour passed by and still nothing. This brought me to the discussion with the man outside the bathroom about speed walking and the mountains and he informed me that I should come back in an hour and that the event would start then. He seemed to know what he was talking about so after waiting another hour we returned and the whole area was deserted, save for a few people loitering around. This time we decided to go play pool at a tiny local bar that had been filled with Ecuadoreans all week long.

When we walked in, everything stopped inside for a second or two as people turned to look at us. After getting a table, one of the three, we were lucky enough to get a complete set of balls. The other tables were missing at least a few each. We tried to rack the balls with one of the two wooden triangles but strangely they were both different sizes. More strangely neither one fit all the balls. I found this rather ironic that in a town famous for its artisans, that they couldn´t get someone to make a wooden triangle. Nonetheless it was fun and it helped to pass yet another hour. This time when we returned to the cock fighting pit the building was open and there were a few people milling around the place but it was still pretty dull and mostly filled with other tourists.

A short while later more people entered, some of them bringing roosters in special bags, I´m not sure where you would buy these bags but maybe there is a cock fighting store or section of the market. There was a bar selling beer, liquor, and soda, but no food, maybe food distracts the birds and compromises the fight. On my trip to the bar I walked in on the preparation ceremony. One man was holding the rooster and had trimmed the nail up on its leg to create a hole. Over this hole he placed a metal plate with a hole in it to use a support that was then taped to the birds leg. Into this metal hole and the nail hole a long sharp needle-like thorn was inserted with the point facing outward and secured to the birds leg with tape.

This process was repeated with the other leg resulting in the rooster having two sharp needles with the points facing backward from their legs. The whole time the rooster was shaking as if it was scared, but it wasn´t in any pain, not yet anyways. The first rooster was then brought into the ring and its handler would wave a random rooster in front of it to really rile it up and get it into a fighting mood while its adversary was being similarly prepared. With two roosters in the ring, each handler held their rooster and they touched the heads together, similar to the touching of gloves in a boxing match. After this the timer was set to some random amount and the birds were unleashed on each other. Finally free, the birds quickly faced each other and flared the feathers behind their necks to create almost a hood, in attempt to intimidate the opponent.

The fight began in rapid succession with a quick charge and some pecking to the head and neck. The action was really fast and it was hard to determine what was happening most of the time. The roosters would occasionally fly up and gouge at each other with the thorns on their legs. From time to time the roosters would become entangled when their nails would catch in the other rooster´s feathers. When this happened the referee stepped in to break up the birds with help from their handlers. After the initial time expired the handlers collected their rooster and wiped the blood from their heads and then either kissed the birds for luck or gave them mouth-to-mouth to help them breath, before returning them to the fighting. People in the stands would yell things as the fighting intensified and a few times the action was less than a few feet from our front row seats.

Despite being so close it was hard to follow a lot of the action as it was mostly a high speed flurry of feathers and pecking. The fighting continued until one of the birds got weaker and weaker from losing so much blood due to the cumulative small wounds. Eventually, one rooster would strike a death blow on its weaker counterpart and the bird would go limp and fall down. At this point victory was declared and the birds were separated and removed from the ring. The winner was praised and taken to be cleaned up and rested for another match later in the night. The loser, well, he was not so lucky, in reality, he was still alive, albeit just barely. He was removed from the ring and taken to an area just nearby, leaving a bloody trail along its exit route. Near the ring the losing rooster was held upside down over the concrete floor and allowed to bleed out as it slowly died of the course of a minute or two.

Such is the cycle of the cock fight. There were long delays in between matches as the birds had to be prepared. Opponents are selected by displaying the birds on a long table and discussing the number of victories that each bird has, and probably a few other criteria that I didn´t understand. There is also considerable betting that goes on for each match, and I have no clue what the odds are or how they are determined, it was well beyond my level of Spanish. The one thing I did find out is that you can bring your own rooster to fight. So what I recommend, if you find yourself at the market in Otavalo on a Saturday, is to buy a rooster from the live animal market in the morning, train it during the day, and then bring it to the cock fighting pit at night. It’s always better when you have a vested interest in something and in the best case you might even win some money, worst case your meals for the next day are covered.