Toro: Wanderer's Guide to Bullfighting, Tequila, and Mexico

by Mark Sundeen

Mark Sundeen cannot afford to go to Pamplona, but he won't let that stop him from having a "Hemingwayesque" adventure. And so he sets off for Mexico in search of a budget bullfight. Starting in Southern California, where politically correct, Portuguese-style spectacles are held (the bull is not killed), he proceeds to Tijuana, Mazatlan, and, finally, Mexico City, where the Spanish corrida tradition is strongest.Almost immediately, however, he encounters complications. In Mexico, the Spaniards' trademark passion is considered a namby-pamby rich boy's game -- decidedly not "for the people." Even worse, whatever popularity bullfighting may once have enjoyed in Mexico is declining in these days of NAFTA and "narcotrafficos." Unwilling to abandon his quest, Mark explores such substitutes as traveling carnivals, cockfights, and midget bullfight revues. And he seeks out the daring young men who, in nobler times, might have found themselves in a bullring but who today are working as cayotes, runners for drug cartels, marijuana-dealing surfers, and soldiers manning U.S.-funded drug checkpoints along desert highways."Toro" may not discover the real fiesta brava, but it certainly finds the real Mexico.

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002