Country-Fried BULL

For those of you who may not know, the Nelore breed of cattle is very predominate in many parts of South America and are of Cebu origin. The breed is white in color, with a hump and look very similar to the American Brahman breed, however the Nelore is somewhat thinner boned and taller. The smaller horns of the Nelore grow up and out, rather than more straight-out like the larger Brahman horns and the Nelore, an extremely skittish or very nervous breed of cattle, are generally in a bad mood. The animals are accustomed to living in remote areas in or near the jungle and often only have close contact with man perhaps only four or five times a year.

The primary business of the company that had contracted me was cotton and sugar cane farming; however they were becoming active in the beef cattle business and wanted to exhibit some of their pure bred Nelore cattle that they had imported from Brasil, at the fair. Ralph, who was married to the owner's daughter Lucia, was of medium height, thin in stature, with light brown hair and always wore dark horn rim glasses, which was sort of his trade mark. Ralph, who was about 34 years old and an accountant, was the general manager of the company and oddly enough he had grownup in Boston, Massachusetts. Ralph, a very intelligent guy, met his wife Lucia at Harvard University and she convinced him to move to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and work for her father.

Ralph was a very likeable and nice guy who had grownup in the city, but obviously, he had absolutely no working knowledge of cattle. He had worked for a large dairy operation in Mexico, but always in an office, not in the field. To Ralph all cattle were the same, regardless of the breed or their environment and he was determined to have his ranching operation participate in the up and coming fair.

At that time I had a ranch rented about two hours drive from Santa Cruz. The ranch was near the hacienda of Ralph's father-in-law and I agreed to trail-drive 50 bulls to my ranch and halter-break and gentle 10 of the best, if possible, within two months time. I had a ranch manager (mandador in Spanish) named Ramon at that time. Ramon was about 29 years old, more or less 5'4 in height and couldn't have weighted more than 130 pounds, but he was wiry and strong, "pura fibra", and he had a knowledgeable working experience with cattle for some time. Ramon, who it seemed always had a twist of his long brown hair loosely dangling over his forehead had told me that he thought it would be easy to tame the bulls in a month's time. The bulls weighted an average of 460 kilograms or slightly over 1,000 pounds when they left Ralph's father-in law's hacienda and after a three-hour trail-drive Ramon and the bulls arrived at my corrals.

The corrals, being somewhat primitive were constructed of wooden posts, near 15 foot long and about 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The long posts were positioned horizontally and secured at the ends between two 6-foot vertical posts that were buried about 3 feet in the ground. The end of the long post was laid on top of a short piece of post at ground level, followed by another short piece and another long post, followed by another short piece, etc. The short pieces or spacers and the long posts alternated until the height of the corral was a little over 5 feet tall, just the right height for a 460 kilo bull to rest his head over the top log. There were no swinging gates. The entrance of the corrals were opened and closed by removing smaller horizontal posts that were placed in between the ends of the logs. Not too handy, but the corrals had worked for more than twenty years.

Ramon lived with a very nice, older, heavy-set lady named Flora who had three practically grown sons. By practically grow, I mean all three boys were in there early to late teens. I would occasionally hire the boys to fix fence, build corrals, work cattle and do general ranch labor. I arrived at the ranch about an hour after the cattle had arrived and after parking my car in the barn, I found Ramon and we started for the corrals to take a look at Ralph's future show stock.

When Ramon and I arrived at the corrals the bulls were resting and as we slowly walked around and in-between the animals, they would getup, stretch and move out of our way. Ramon assured me that the young bulls were as tame as dogs and he and the boys would have at least ten of the young Nelore bulls halter broke by the following week. I was thinking that the majority of my years of experience working with Nelore cattle had been pretty bad, but who knows, maybe Ramon and the boys had some old tricks up their sleeves and knew how to handle them. Never the less it wouldn't take long for Ramon and the boys to know exactly what they were in for.

The large dirt floored barn, combination ranch house, was about 30 years old and located about 40 yards away from the corrals. Ramon, Flora and the boys lived in two large, adobe (made from mud and dried cane) rooms at the end of the tin roofed barn. The walls were about 12 inches thick, which provided cool insulation during the hot summertime, which were the months of December, January and February and kept out the cold during the months of May, June and July, the Bolivian winter. It's not that the winter was freezing cold in the Santa Cruz region, but when the wind whipped out of the south, it would get a bit nippy.

The kitchen or cooking area, which also doubled as a family room or social center, was large, wide open and separated the other two rooms. Flora cooked on an elevated open fire, about the same height as a cook stove, with a built in compartment below where she stored her firewood and on a windless day you couldn't see for the smoke that would fill the area. Flora wasn't a bad cook, considering want she had to work with. There was no electricity on the ranch and the water was hauled in buckets from a nearby river to the house.

Ramon's family diet consisted of a variation of food which consisted of rice, beans, boiled platano (similar to a banana), potatoes, hot-peppers, large kernel white sweet corn on the cob and sometimes one of the chickens that they raised. Beef or pork was only served on special occasions, normally only when I brought it from town. Sometimes the boys would catch fish, an armadillo, a possum (Zorro), a snake or a rabbit that would also be eaten. Incidentally after the armadillo was cleaned and the intestines removed it was cooked in and served up side down in its own shell. Although the armadillo was not my favorite dish, it was tasty and enjoyed by many people in the country.

I was always amazed at the large portions of food that Ramon and the boys would consume. Flora would heap their large porcelain coated metal plates so high and full of food that it would be falling over the side; however in not more than 10 minutes every plate was empty. Incidentally after each meal Ramon and the boys would meticulously rub the plates and cooking utensils with sand until they were shiny clean, as was the local tradition.

By the time we had finished inspecting the bulls and discussed how they were to be tamed it was late in the afternoon so I decided to head back to my home in Santa Cruz. I had a trip planned to the northern Beni cattle region of Bolivia the following day and I needed to finish some details before my flight. I offered to let them use a big, black, Argentine Percharon horse, named Negro, a friend of mine was keeping at the ranch, should they need it. The huge horse was over 6 foot tall at the shoulder and weighed more than 1600 pounds. Old Negro, due to his large size, might be very useful in taming the young bulls.

Ramon was very confident in completing his task before the two month time limit and I told him and the boys I would be back the following week to check on their progress. I had promised to pay a special premium to the boys for every bull that was gentle, so they were grinning from ear to ear as I drove out the front gate.

Almost a week had passed. I'd returned to Santa Cruz from a hard trip to the Beni, the night before and right now it was 9 o'clock in the morning and I was on my way to the ranch. Incidentally, at the time, the northern Beni cattle region of Bolivia was completely inaccessible by vehicle, simply due to the fact that there were no roads and very few bridges. The Beni was basically isolated and to get to the Beni region wasn't easy. The region was made up of thousand's of acres of breathtakingly beautiful sabana or lush rolling grassy areas, with intermingling dense jungle and rivers, so you either packed in by horse or mule, which was about a two week's ride or you flew. On one occasion I had the opportunity to participate in a five week trail drive with about 500 head of four year steers and 40 head of working horses from the Beni to the cattle market in Santa Cruz, but that's another story.

The road to my ranch, from the city of Santa Cruz, was paved for about the first 30 minutes, than at the turnoff the road became hard packed dirt for another 45 minutes and for the final 45 minutes or so the road was narrow and sandy. My car was a yellow, rear engine, four passenger; fiberglass convertible called a Gurgle, which was made in Brasil. The Gurgle was similar to a dun buggy, but it was somewhat larger and higher off the ground. The car was built by the Brasilian branch of the German Volkswagen Company and was considered an excellent vehicle in rough terrain. Most of the time I drove the car without the cloth top or the two small removable front doors, which I only used in wet or cooler weather. I had outfitted the Gurgle to my liking, which consisted of a driver's side mounted directional spot light, large oversize wheels and tires, a leather holster mounted along the top of the left front fender, near the driver's sit for my Remington model 20, twelve gage pump shotgun. I always carried a 35-foot long nylon rope, a 36-inch machete and my spurs in the front cargo compartment. To top it all off, a friend had brought me the latest model Pioneer radio and cassette player that I had mounted inside the glove compartment, not because it was a neat place to have it, but because it was the safest place in the car to hide a radio so it wouldn't get stolen.

Francisca, who had joined me on this trip, was a long time Bolivian friend, who had long brown hair, which hung to the middle of her back, naturally brown skin and deep, dark, almost black eyes. Francisca, about 5'2 in height and a very pretty young lady, lived in the city of Santa Cruz, but her father was a cattle rancher and she had actually grownup in the country. Cisca, which was her nickname, had for sometime wanted to see my ranch, so I invited her to tag along with me on this outing.

After about an hour and a half's drive out of Santa Cruz we crossed a wide, but shallow river. About 5 minutes after crossing the river, we rounded a sharp curve on a section of the road that was deep sand and surrounded by lush jungle. Some cattle were slowly crossing the road so I stopped my car to let them pass. After the cattle crossed I tried to start moving again but the sand was so deep that my tires started spinning and I bottomed out and couldn't make any progress. Francisca immediately pulled off her shoes, jumped out of the open car and began pushing the car from the rear, but still no luck. I turned off the engine and climbed out of the Gurgle to see how bad the lightweight car was stuck, which was considered as almost an everyday occurrence on this sandy stretch of the road. And as I walked to the back of the Gurgle I noticed Cisca's short sleeve blouse and blue jeans neatly hanging on a tree branch beside the car. To my surprise, Francisca was half way under the car digging out the sand and wearing only her bra and panties. Suddenly two mounted cowboys, who apparently had been riding with the cattle, rode up, tied their horses to a nearby tree and without saying more than "Buenas dias" (Good morning) or paying any attention to Francisca, began placing flat rocks and branches under the rear tires. The rocks and branches provided enough traction to get us going again. Meanwhile Francisca came out from under the car, brushed off the sand and dust and nonchalantly put on her blouse and blue jeans. After she had dressed we thanked the men and in no time we were on our way again. After a few minutes I started laughing, thinking about Cisca in only her bra and panties when the cowboys rode up to help us and looking over at her, I couldn't help but ask her why she had undressed. Francisca, smiling and with a certain innocent look on her face, explained that what she had done was very normal out in the country, she hadn't packed a bag and didn't want to dirty her only change of clothes. We arrived at the ranch early in the afternoon after having pulled over for lunch on the road. I'd packed a cooler with some sandwiches and a couple of liters of Bolivian brewed Pilsen beer, which always came in handy in this almost, desolate countryside. The Pilsen brewery, owned and operated by Bolivians of German descent, produced an excellent beer that was sold only in one-liter size (about a quart), dark green bottles.

Flora, who I had mentioned before lived with Ramon, greeted us just as we were driving into the barn. I parked the car in the barn and after greeting Flora, I asked her the whereabouts of Ramon. Flora told me that he and the boys were working the cattle so I went to the corrals to see if I could find them. I had left Francisca in the barn with Flora so she could catch up on the local gossip. There wasn't a sign of anyone at the corrals so I started walking towards the wooden frame storage shack at the backside of the corrals, near the river. On my way to the shack I'd noticed some bent and broken lower branches on a couple trees, as well as several of the permanent corral posts scattered on the ground, so obviously things just didn't seem normal. Suddenly, I could hear Ramon yelling, more like screaming and at the same time I thought I could hear the boys' big ole ugly shaggy cur dog barking and it sounded like a bull bellering from around the other side of the shack. I started running towards the shack so I could see where all the commotion was coming from and as I rounded the corner, I saw one of the strangest sights I'd seen in my life.

Ramon was sprawled out in the mud under the bull, looking up at the panting animal. The bull scratched and bleeding was saddled with a primitive looking, half torn up work saddle and the middle-aged boy was clinging to the saddle leathers and trying to hang on and ride the bull. The oldest boy was riding old Negro, the Argentine Percharon, with a long piece of rawhide lariat that went from the bull's neck to where it was tied to the tail of the horse. The boy, who was riding old Negro, appeared to be trying to pull the bull off of Ramon and the third boy, the youngest, was up in a tree and seemed to be scared to death. The black cur dog was barking and biting at the bull's heels and the young bull, completely out of breath and standing still, was looking down at Ramon who by this time was curled up in the mud hole. Ramon slowly rolled out from beneath the bull, got to his feet and yelled at the black dog that shied away and finally stopped barking. The bull jumped a couple of times and the boy, who was trying to ride the bull, let go of the leathers and made a beautiful three point landing as he splashed right into the mud hole. The hand made rawhide lariat that had been tied to the big horse's tail came loose and the bull, having gotten rid of his rider began to slowly walk back towards the corrals. Ramon, wiping the mud from his face, limped over to where I was standing and on his way he yelled at the boys to catch the bull, take off the saddle and release him.

As we were walking back to the barn, I noticed Ramon was what you might say pretty well bruised and battered and I asked him if he'd had any better luck with the other animals. Ramon, with one of his eyes turning a sort of blue-green and half closed, told me that they'd been working with this one bull all week and hadn't had the opportunity to try the others. Ramon, with his ever-present show of confidence, assured me that the young bull was almost getting gentle. He went on to tell me that the first day the bull tore up the corrals, escaped and it took them all day to catch him, but since then the bull was getting easier to handle. Ramon was still sure that by the following week the young bull would be as gentle as a dog. Ramon and I joined the women inside the barn and after talking it over I decided to give Ramon and the boys a couple more days to tame the bulls, for no other reason than not to hurt his pride. I might mention that it was very hard for me to hold back my laughter during our serious conversation.

Later that afternoon Cisca and I left the ranch and started our drive back to Santa Cruz. We had just crossed the wide river, where we had stuck the car earlier and as we were driving along we spotted a young, grayish tan colored two-toed sloth (Perezoso) very slowly crossing the road. The sloth normally lives in trees where they eat the tender leaves, which is their primary source of food. Not seeing any trees nearby and sort of feeling sorry for the poor animal, I stopped the car, picked up the cute little critter, opened the lid of the front luggage compartment of the Gurgle and gently placed him inside and closed the lid. There was plenty of ventilation inside the compartment so I knew he would be all right. When we arrived at my house I raised the lid and to my surprise the sloth, which are known for the strength in their arms, was completely entangled in the wiring harness of the car. After about 30 minutes time, I managed to remove the sloth, but unfortunately I was forced to cut and remove the majority of the wiring of the car. I released the slow motioned critter in my backyard garden, where he immediately inched his way up the nearest tree, but it took more than 3 days to have the car's wiring repaired.

Well to make a long story short, Ramon and the boys never tamed any of the bulls. I told Ralph that the bulls were to wild to gentle and that it would better to start taming and halter breaking the animals when they were young calves and Ralph agreed.

Ramon, Flora and the boys continued living at the ranch and working for me for several more years, but oddly enough and particularly after knowing those boys for quite some time, I don't ever remember having heard their names.

This story is protected by International rights. Charlie Lacy R.
Alajuela
Costa Rica
Centroamerica
endovac@sol.racsa.co.cr

Contents Page Poems Ramon & The Boys More Poems Night the Whole Train Danced Rare, Medium & Well Done Jokes Stupidities Interesting Sponsor's Page Manure Happens Home Page Subscribe or Submit Material