El Seibo Bullfights

The Wild Bullfights of El Seibo: Uncommon Attraction

The town of El Seibo is a quiet, unassuming mountain village. It’s centrally located at the eastern edge of La Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. The peace and tranquility here is ideal for nature-lovers. All of this gives us ample reason to rank El Seibo among our top must-see spots for a future visit to the DR. There is, however, another much more uncommon attraction that ensures we’ll be making that trip in May. Specifically May 1-10. That’s when this normally staid community transforms itself into one of the most raucous corners of the Caribbean. The occasion: the El Seibo Bullfights.

Actually, as near as I can tell, El Seibo may be the only place in the Caribbean where you can see and experience bullfighting.

El Seibo town (est. 1506) includes bullfighting as part of its annual festival in honor of Santa Cruz. The spectacle actually features no real fighting at all. The bulls are not harmed. (Take note and hold off on the hate mail, animal-loving friends.)

As for the bullfighters and spectators…well, that’s another story. The video below gives you an idea of what I mean…

See, I wasn’t kidding: you really can experience bullfighting here!

From other accounts I’ve read, it seems that the event generally starts off with a few actual bullfighters dressed in traditional toreador outfits putting on a show for the crowd. As the rum starts to flow, however, a good portion of the men in the crowd, emboldened with liquid courage, descend into the ring to have a go at braving the bull. Eventually, you end up with more folks in the ring participating than in the stands watching.

This can, of course, yield some pretty negative results. (Don’t watch this, squeamish friends.)

Hmmm, not sure how the wife is going to feel about this one, but as that champion of all things bullfighting, Ernest Hemingway, famously said: “Man is not made for defeat.”

Last updated by Steve Bennett on .

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