by Rod Hughes

By long-cherished custom, the Christmas-New Year holidays are a signal for the natives to charge off to the beaches on both coasts, which usually means that there is no room at the inn there. But the tourist who did not know that or forgot and finds himself stuck in a Central Valley hotel still has alternatives.

After Christmas, usually Dec. 27, (tomorrow, as this is written) the streets of San Jose fill with horses instead of cars. This is the annual tope, the horse parade. Usually 2-3,000 horses are brought in from all over the country and a word of warning: If your taste does not run to horseflesh, you will be mightily bored after the first 10 minutes. Unfortunately, very few riders are attired in colorful costumes, but a few are.

Worse, if you find yourself isolated from your car or hotel by the parade, you will be out of luck because the police are strict about crossing the street lest you be trampled. On the other hand, horse lovers will be enchanted and almost all the horses are well-behaved and in better physical shape than their riders.

Another alternative is the carnival at Zapote, a suburb of the capital. It begins in the afternoon and is held through Christmas and finishes usually New Year’s Day. There are rides on various machines and stalls where one can buy (usually) typical food. Although we do not recommend buying food from street vendors, Zapote is an exception, carefully supervised by the Health Ministry. Infractions of sanitary regulations result in immediate closure of the stall.

An evening event is the bullfighting (really, bull-baiting) at the temporary stadium (Redondel in Spanish) where young sports playing tag with bulls the size of Caterpilar tractors. The are a few demonstrations of traditional bullfighting but, unlike in Spain and Mexico, the bulls are not harmed. Main event is a bloodless sport where men race around a single bull in the ring, trying to pull his tail or do some other indignity to the fierce animal.

This reporter is an animal lover who cannot abide cruelty but the bulls seem to enjoy the whole affair and are not left in the ring for more than about 15 minutes. Some are not even breathing heavily when they are finally roped by men on horseback and dragged off. Unlike the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, no deaths of man nor beast as been recorded in the Redondel although some broken bones are suffered by the more intrepid–or slower–celebrants.

Rodeo clowns stand by to help distract the bull in case someone trips for the animal succeeds in running down a young man. Police try to keep out of the ring anyone who has over-consumed “liquid courage” enough to be coordination- or judgment-impared.

The downtown restaurant Balcon de Europa has historic photos on its walls, including one of a last-century reveler suffering the removal of his trousers by a bull’s horn. In Costa Rica, the bull sometimes has the last word.