Despite the high ticket prices which restrict the most famous shows to an economic elite, Plaza La Esperanza in Lima was lavishly stocked on Saturday, with 30,000 spectators chanting "Olé" in front of the passes of the bullfighters dressed in lights.

For the bullfighter Andres Roca Rey, the months without being able to bullfight have been "very hard".

"The situation is still difficult" because of the permanence of the pandemic, "but I am happy to be able to exercise my profession, to fight in the arenas since they reopened," he told AFP.

The pandemic put an end to the economy around bullfighting, affecting the organization of shows, breeders and first and foremost matadors, banderilleros and picadors.

Daniel Cortez, 40, a hat seller near the arenas, is also delighted to be able to "return to work".

"For two years we had our hands tied because we couldn't go out to work, and now it's a joy to be here," he told AFP.

In the stands, a golden youth toast while watching the successive killings.

"It's a tradition that is shared in families, as in my case because I come from a bullfighting family," says Danixa Policarpo, a 33-year-old aficionada.

"Bullfighting is not only in Spain, it is not only in Lima but also in the provinces of Peru" where it is "important in many cities", she continues.

Before the pandemic, some 700 bullfights were held each year in Peru, in which nearly 2,500 bulls are killed.

Rita Oyague, 41-year-old anti-corrida activist, finds it "regrettable that after the pandemic, an event that has shaken the world, we still have these traditional, violent, anachronistic, outdated practices, which do not bring anything positive to the company".

With other activists, she brandished signs on the outskirts of the arenas bearing the inscriptions: "Neither art nor culture, it is torture" or "A true artist creates, a bullfighter kills".

In February 2020, Peru's Constitutional Court rejected a collective action calling for a ban on also popular bullfighting and cockfighting.

In its judgment, the Court justified its decision arguing that "there is no Universal Declaration of Animal Rights".

© 2021 AFP