Escaramuza Fairs

A tourist's jaw drops when she sees an escaramuza team for the fist time. After all, the women are mounted sidesaddle wearing colorful dresses and Mexican sombreros. It's a site from what would seem like from another age.

Escaramuza fairs are an untapped mine for tourists in Mexico, and not just for foreigners but for the local folks too. It outranks most options for families and couples looking for something fun and affordable to do on the weekends. Aside from the spectacle of  the horse riding performances, they're full of good food, good music, hospitality and a down home atmosphere.

How to find out when and where to see an escaramuza performance in Mexico? They can be found on the events page of this blog, as well as the blog Escaramuzas Damas Charras and the calendar page of De Charros.

The video below is from an escaramuza fair (meaning 10 or so teams perform) at a charro club in Mexico City. We asked a rider why she choose this sport. If you don't read Spanish, that's okay, there are captions in English (click the "cc" option at the bottom of the youtube window).

For English subtitles, after clicking ¨play,¨then click the CC at the bottom right of the youtube window.

If you're interested in learning how the escaramuza sport came to be, check out this video below.

For English subtitles, after clicking ¨play,¨then click the CC at the bottom right of the youtube window.

Maria Fernanda Perezgrovas Martinez - Photographer

Maria Fernanda Perezgrovas Martinez was riding her horse Benito when contacted by The Art of the Escaramuza for an interview. She said he's her first horse, purchased just half a year ago. That's when she decided it was time to learn to ride, and lucky for her, Benito's previous owner was an escaramuza rider.

The Pachuca native began taking pictures of charreria in 2011 when an ad agency commissioned her to photograph charros for a calender. The client fell through but her photographs were honored by Mazatlan's International Photography Symposium (SIF).

After moving to Mexico City to study communications at the Panamerican University, and later to Florida to experiment with digital photography at the city's Art Institute, she moved back to Pachuca and started her professional photographer career.

Perezgrovas' most exquisite work are what she calls "photo-paintings," like the images of Amazon riders in this post.  Her next solo exhibit, titled "Mexican Charreria Tradition," opens at the end of March at the University Salle in Pachuca.  

For inquiries into the sale of her work, to hire her for a shoot,  or to keep up with her photography, she can be reached at the following contacts: Facebook / mafergrovas@gmail.com / Cell: (+52) 772.736.4184

Jose "Pepe" Camacho - Founding member of the escaramuza

Photo was taken in October of 1953 at the Rancho del Charro, today's National Charro Association, in Mexico City.

1954: Lilia Lopez Becerril & Rosalia Ranzanz join the team.

Jose Camacho Elorriaga, affectionately known as "Pepe" had the good fortune of riding on the first escaramuza in the history of the sport.

As a boy, he took horse riding lessons with his brother Antonio, sister Guadalupe, known as "Coco," and three other kids from the Ruiz Loredo family : Arturo, Graciela and Maria Eugenia.

Fate put them in the middle of the arena one afternoon in 1953 as a group, showing off their skills during a break at a charreada, or Mexican rodeo. They performed a basic and slow synchronized routine. That day, the escaramuza was born.

Thirty-eight years later, the discipline became an officially recognized sport of charreria in 1991, recognized by the Mexican Federation of Charreria when Carlos Enrique Pacual Lopez led the organization.

Pepe left the original team after a few years, along with his brother Antonio. They had other charro sports to practice, leaving the door wide open for other little girls to join the team. Since then, the escaramuza sport has been a female affair.

Pepe on his horse at the National Association of Charros in 2009, photo by Leslie Mazoch.

Below are historical photographs of the first and second generation of escaramuza teams, including Jose, narrated by interviews with his sister Coco and brother Antonio.