A lone runner takes to the fence to dodge a heifer with both eyes and horns trained on him during Running Las Vacas. All runners receive the red kerchief, bandana or scarf as a souvenir of their daredevil experience in Ciudad Acuña. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) A flock of runners flea from a herd of heifers just being released during the 2007 edition of Running Las Vacas. The release point on the northeast corner of Plaza Benjamin Canales is congested with runners and bovines until the participants scatter along the three block route around the square. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) FIESTA_C-LOGO FIESTA_CRAWFISH Hector Arrocha, City of Acuña tourism director, takes his turn testing a heifer in the El Cerrito corral near Monterrey. Event organizers traveled to the ranch in March to participate in a tienta, a display of stock to be contracted or purchased for an event by testing the animals for bravery and responsiveness. (Contributed photo/Roberto Garza Crosby)

More than 100 daredevils, showoffs and locos gringos entered and ran in the Running Las Vacas race around Benjamin Canales Plaza in Acuña last year. Fiesta Brava Weekend organizers are banking on at least that many for the 2008 event, April 4-6. Acuña is across the Texas-Mexico border from Del Rio, approximately 150 miles south of San Angelo. To get there, travel on U.S. Highway 277 south to Del Rio and follow he signs to the international bridge.

The annual spring extravaganza aims to remind tourists and travelers that Ciudad Acuña may be the safest, most hospitable Mexican border town. And FUN is the watchword for Fiesta Brava Weekend, featuring events and appearances from beauty queens, to goat-milking, barnyard animal chases, a crawfish boil, and a comical mix of runners and heifers, all flavored with Mexican music, food, clowns, and eye-candy color everywhere.

“Get ready for a mad, adrenalin rush weekend,” touts the organizers’ Web site, www.runninglasvacas.com, assuring that excitement builds for runners and spectators alike as the Fiesta Brava Weekend is kicked off on Friday night (April 4) with the crowning of Miss Acuña Tourism on the patio at Casino El Dorado at 8 p.m. The casino evening is also highlighted by a calcutta (betting) on the swiftest, most determined riders in the next afternoon’s Donkey Derby. There is no cost to participate in the derby – donkey’s provided – except perhaps to the pride and reputation of the rider. Moreover, Caribe Soul, a Saltillo, Mexico, band will liven up the Casino El Dorado Patio, Friday night.

Saturday morning (April 5), arts and crafts vendors display their wares on the capacious sidewalks of Hidalgo Street, the city’s main tourist shopping and dining district immediately adjacent to the Acuña Port-of-Entry at the foot of the International Bridge. Hidalgo Street shops will set up sidewalk sales at 10 a.m., and in Benjamin Canales Plaza food and beverage booths will set up about 1 p.m. for the afternoon’s festivities. The plaza will also sport a goat-milking contest, and pig- and chicken-catching competitions. After 2 p.m., the menagerie of goats, pigs, chickens and burros will be displayed behind city hall on the north end of the plaza. Registration for the main event, Running Las Vacas, begins at the plaza’s northeast corner at 2 p.m. (The plaza is bounded by Acuña City Hall, Matamoros Street, Guerrero Street, and Victoria Street.)

Spectators share the shady plaza with food booth entrepreneurs, roving balloon sellers, and souvenir hawkers, and many more scramble for viewpoint vantages around the outside circumference of the three-block route. Before runners and their bovine companions are turned into the streets, the Running of Las Vacas is heralded by a parade of beauty queens, mounted charros, clowns, and escaramuzas, skilled equestriennes riding side-saddle in brilliantly-colored and frilled traditional dresses. After the short parade, a Donkey Derby will delight the crowds. Fearless burro riders may register at the plaza, but also may contact organizers on the event’s Web site. “We’re always looking for good, well-qualified, triple crown-winning riders,” said Garza, with a chuckle.

At 5 p.m., Saturday, at least 25 young cows of Spanish fighting bull stock will be corralled near the northeast corner of the plaza. In several releases, the vaquillas will chase or be chased by groups chosen from125 runners sporting red bandanas and sashes. The mad dash around the plaza is full of foolhardiness and laughable antics among the men and women taunting the small, feisty bovines. The heifers were selected in March by event organizers who visited the El Cerrito Ranch, near Monterrey, Mexico. Runners must register for the scramble ($10 per participant), and they may do so either at the event or online.

Fiesta Brava Weekend organizers claim that at least 6,000 attended the 2007 event, and they’re hoping that number will soar now that word-of-mouth advertising has taken hold among visitors who clearly enjoyed their experiences. “We’re going to have very good security at the plaza,” said Roberto Garza Crosby, leading the organizing effort. “We’ll have four entry points to the plaza, and entry is free, but though beer will be sold, no alcoholic beverages will leave the plaza once people are inside.”

Elevated platform seating for 400 is available for event sponsors and VIP guests, but most spectators will surround the plaza on both sides of the three block course. No injuries have been reported in the two years of the events, but help is available if accidents occur. “Yes, we have a first aid station staffed by the Civic Protection Agency, and doctors and nurses will be on hand at the corner of Victoria and Matamoros. Thank God, we’ve never had to use any of them before at this event,” said Garza.

The Fiesta’s evening pachanga gets underway at the Corona Club on Hidalgo Street after Running Las Vacas winds down. The famed venue for beverages, music and socializing features Bandera, Texas, country and western star Charlie Robison. Robison, known for many hits including “Walter,” “Poor Man’s Son,” and “Flatland Boogie,” begins his concert no later than 10 p.m.

Sunday (April 6), Fiesta Brava Weekend continues with a relaxed, flavorful noon event, the Crawfish Boil at La Macarena Restaurant & Bar. The patio will be set up for afternoon diners to meet and greet event participants and organizers over a table laden with crawfish and traditional Mexican snacks and entrees, supplemented by music and a cash bar.

The city’s organizers of Fiesta Brava Weekend include Hector Arrocha, Samuel Flores, Jaime Garza, Roberto Garza Crosby, Gerardo Gonzalez, and Jorge Ramon.

Garza is owner of El Patio indoor and outdoor furnishings shop, 118 Matamoros St. Garza welds most of the decorative lawn and patio furniture himself, and his wife Christina selects the colorful interior décor items in the cozy shop tucked away among fountains and patio paths in the heart of the tourist district.

Arrocha serves as director of the Ciudad Acuña tourism department, and Gonzalez is president of the Acuña Chamber of Commerce. Flores manages the Hotel San Antonio, Hidalgo and Lerdo Streets, and presides over the Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Bureau. Ramon owns and manages the historic and popular La Macarena Restaurant & Bar, 295 Madero St., and Jaime Garza is the owner/proprietor of the famed Corona Club, 200 Hidalgo St.

We recommend accommodations at Ramada Inn Del Rio, (830) 775-1511. 

Escaramuzas, young equestriennes, usually the daughters of charros, liven up the 2007 Running Las Vacas parade with color and tossed carnations. The girls are accomplished horsewomen who compete as individuals and in teams at charreadas, a Mexican version of rodeos, but steeped in hundreds of years of tradition. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)	Miss Acuña Tourism and her court join the Running Las Vacas parade, throwing blood-red carnations to waiting arms along the three-block parade route. Miss Acuña Tourism is chosen the night before the parade at ceremonies on the patio of El Dorado Casino. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)
A Monterrey, Mexico clown, impersonating Mexico’s cinema folk hero, Cantínflas, performs for the crowds lining the street during the 2007 Running Las Vacas parade. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)	A fancy roper in charro regalia performs for the Running Las Vacas crowd last year. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)
From the safety of the fence, runners taunt heifers in Running Las Vacas on Matamoros Street, while spectators in Benjamin Canales Plaza, right, cheer and jeer the antics and silliness in the street. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)	A runner who may have waited too long for a head start is pursued by the heifers he taunted into action during Running of Las Vacas 2007. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)
The Mexican heifers – or vaquillas – selected for Acuña’s Running of Las Vacas mill around in the corrals of El Cerrito Ranch near Monterrey. (Contributed photo/Roberto Garza Crosby)	Country crooner Charlie Robison is slated to perform at the Corona Club on Hidalgo Street in Acuña in the evening following Running of Las Vacas. The Saturday show should get underway about 10 p.m. in the famed and popular watering hole. (Contributed photo/Robison, www.charlierobison.com)