Running Las Vacas starts Friday, March 30

March 25, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Is it safe to go see Running Las Vacas? Two reasons stand out in support of finding fun in Acuña. First, bad publicity spewing from other border cities notwithstanding, you haven’t seen it here because there’s little or nothing to report. Ciudad Acuña is arguably the safest Mexican border town along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. As with any city, if you go hunting for trouble, it can be found, and far easier in San Antonio than in Acuña. But merchants and cab drivers in the Acuña tourist district – along Hidalgo Street, Madero Street and cross streets in between – welcome shoppers and revelers to their fairly safe environment. They have a profound and vested interest in not tolerating party poopers or criminals in their business milieu. Second, crossing the border here is easy. You may hear complaints about long waiting times on the International Bridge, but they are peanuts compared to waits between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, and between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. In addition, all you need is $2.50 for the U.S. toll, $2.15 for the Mexican toll, and proof of identification (such as your driver’s license) to expedite your return through the Del Rio Port of Entry. Passports will not be required for re-entry to the United States until June 2009, if then.

Headlined last year as “Running Las Vacas,” the Fiesta Brava Weekend in Del Rio’s sister city, Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, is fast approaching its second appearance before enthusiastic crowds, March 30 – April 1.

Wrapped around Acuna’s town square – Plaza Benjamin Canales – the Saturday afternoon spectacle of a herd of young cows dodging and being dodged by foolhardy two-legged runners is reminiscent of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona Spain. The Mexican version sports a little less danger, and a lot more laughs.

Though the bovine scramble around the plaza is the Fiesta Brava Weekend’s centerpiece, there’s so much more to see and do. Wise visitors and tourists crossing the Rio Grande this year should consider a three-day commitment to the fun, extravagant color and frivolity.

A time differential between Mexico and the United States is worthy of note. Because American politicians decided we’d start Daylight Savings Time three weeks early this year, Mexico won’t catch up until mid-April. Given that unfortunate (and probably unnecessary) anomaly, all times given here are U.S. hours.

The pachanga (a very festive party) begins Friday night (March 30), at La Macarena Restaurant, Bar and Casino, 295 Madero St. (near that street’s intersection with Juarez Street), with an 8 p.m. inauguration of Miss Tourism Acuña, flamenco dancing by local performers, and a Calcutta for placing bets on Saturday’s four-legged Donkey Derby contestants.

About Plaza Benjamin Canales Benjamin Canales was killed in a 1908 attack on Las Vacas (now Ciudad Acuña) by revolutionaries opposed to the oppression of workers under the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Under the flag of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (Mexican Liberal Party), forty sympathizers – including Canales – charged a garrison of an estimated 100 federales, reportedly reducing their number to 15. Insurgent losses were high, too, and a retreat took the stragglers off the field of battle. But Canales’ sacrifice is memorialized with the naming of Ciudad Acuña’s bustling and colorful town square.

A bit more sobering will be an homenaje (ceremony of homage) to the memory of Jesus Maria Ramon Cantu, historic impresario of Acuña bullfights and cultural events from the 1930s through the 1960s. Ramon’s heirs now own and manage La Macarena. Following the Ramon homenaje, Monterrey torero Eduardo Marroquin will deliver a bullfighting clinic as advice and instruction to the intrepid contestants in Sunday afternoon’s “Bloodless Amateur Bullfight.”

The traffic intensifies early Saturday (March 31), beginning about noon. Border-crossing visitors are advised by Ciudad Acuña Chamber of Commerce event promoters to follow signs to free parking at the city’s soccer fields along the south bank of the Rio Grande, only three blocks from the day’s events at Benjamin Canales Plaza. Roberto Garza Crosby, event coordinator and grandson of the famed “Ma” Crosby of the famed restaurant and bar, said security forces will patrol the parking lot.

At noon, food and beverage vendors will fire up their grills and stock their coolers with comestibles for the palates of the throngs. At 2 p.m., Ciudad Acuña Mayor Evaristo Lenin Perez will greet the crowd, signaling the start of the afternoon’s entertainment.

The first event, a colorful parade is slated for a 2:30 p.m. start. Organizational difficulties last year prevented a prompt start, but many of those wrinkles should be ironed out. The parade includes beauty queens perched on convertibles, matlachin dancers in brilliant, flashing costumes honoring La Virgen de Guadalupe, horse-mounted charros in huge sombreros and all the rest of their traditional finery, and the escaramuzas (usually daughters of charros) also mounted, riding sidesaddle in brilliantly colored dresses.

The 3 p.m. slot is reserved for the Donkey Derby, a new event this year inviting more crowd participation as riders for the amusement of those who won’t. The race around the plaza virtually assures that the donkeys will not be the only asses drawing laughs from the crowd.

Finally, at 4 p.m., Saturday, the main event, Running Las Vacas, gets underway as cows derived from Spanish fighting bull stock are gradually released into the alley of streets bounded by fences to protect the pressing crowd. Last year, there were complaints that the heifers were, frankly, scrawny and thin, but event organizers assure that animals this year were selected for heft and vigor, most approaching 500 to 600 pounds, according to Garza Crosby, roughly twice the size of last year’s models.

Saturday night, a live band will swing the crowd at the Corona Club on Hidalgo Street where it intersects with Matamoros Street. The music starts at 9 p.m.

Sunday, April 1, Fiesta Brava Weekend closes out the 2007 edition at 4 p.m. with another afternoon of fun, daring and frivolity at Lienzo El Campanario (Bell Tower Arena), about 3.2 miles south of the center of Ciudad Acuña. This is a relaxed and entertaining two to three hours, sporting a real mixed bag of events called a charlotada.

The attractive lienzo is normally used for the very traditional charreada horsemanship competition of associaciones (team associations) of charros, and competitions among teams of escaramuzas, as well.

But for Fiesta Brava Weekend, a mix of traditional and comic presentations will amuse and enlighten the crowd, shaded by the lienzo’s overhanging roof. The afternoon will begin with a grand entry parade – in Spanish, a desfile – of the Acuña team, Escaramuza Las Coronelas.

Forcaditos, a diminutive version of the forcado tradition in Portuguese bullfighting, will challenge the courage of seven youngsters – 8-12 years – to line up and take the brunt of a heifer’s charge, eventually subduing it by climbing onto and all over the young cow.

Rejoneadores are bullfighters who perform spectacular feats of horsemanship in plying their trade, and that tradition, too, will be displayed, but bloodlessly by midget performers from the backs of Shetland ponies.

The afternoon will be interspersed with humor by clowns, acting out their outrageous skits, taunting the heifers, and sometimes paying for it. Toro bol requires teams of four to six members working together for time to corral a heifer through set goal posts. Toro argolla tests the skills and bravado of contestants – men and women – who run to the heifers in the arena, lacing rings on their horns, if they’re lucky or good.

Finally, the arena is the proving grounds for those intrepid contestants – again, men and women – who have signed up to cape a taunted heifer following the instructions and observations obtained at the Friday clinic. This “amateur, bloodless bullfight” leaves the heifers unharmed, but entails certain risks to the two-legged contestants. Prizes are awarded to the most skilled.

Lienzo El Campanario is easily reached by traveling south on Mexico Highway 29 out of the city center just over three miles. The arena is set back from the roadway a bit, but is found on the east (left) side of the road for southbound travelers.

For more information, look at the Fiesta Brava Weekend Web site, www.runninglasvacas.com .

Here is a video of last year's highlights of Fiesta Brava Weekend in Cd. Acuna: