Ride 'em, huaso!

Today was my chance for redemption. Since my sickness last week crushed our rodeo dreams (okay, dad's rodeo dreams), I thought we were out of luck in this regard. But somewhere around the middle of this week I just happened to come across the rodeo website again (who would have ever thought I would just "come across" a website about rodeos?) and found that they had just added some events that were taking place this weekend. A second chance!

So today we went to a Chilean rodeo. With real, live Chilean cowboys (huasos) wearing the traditional dress. Pretty cool stuff, even without being a rodeo fan. Turns out that Chilean rodeos don't consist of different events, it's all just one long event which basically consists of teams of huasos on horses trying to pin a cow up against a wall while yelling crazy things in Spanish. And there's a point system which I have yet to grasp. But I must say there was something oddly cool about seeing these authentic guys with their horses; it all seemed so manly to me!

When I asked someone in the town about the exact location of the rodeo he said that, yes, there was a rodeo today but that it was "chiquitito". Let me say that "chico" means "small", "chiquito" is a diminutive form meaning "very small" and "chiquitito" is even more diminutive meaning "crazy small". He wasn't exaggerating. Tiny, but cool. Because somehow its 'chiquitito' size made it feel even more authentic to me. We were definitely the only gringos there. And we were able to sit right up front in the front row, close enough to have mud flung on us from the horses' hooves. Now that's living, baby!