Last summer, while I was basking in socialist crapulence of Cuba, I got stuck in a town called Trinidad for ten days while my friend puked a bunch. We were staying with a guy called Sergio, a Mafioso ladies’ man who wore an all white suit with a nylon snakeskin shirt and white loafers with golden dragons embellished on the front. Despite being a vegetarian I’d wanted to see a cock-fight in Cuba, but it’s illegal there, so I’d been sheepish about asking people, but when I heard Sergio mention his cock, I asked him if we could come along.

There was some reservation about bringing my friend’s camera. No one really has any technical equipment there that isn’t really old; so a big, flashy digital SLR attracts a lot of attention. But we managed to convince him.

This is Sergio’s opposition binding their cock’s feet before the fight. They wrap their claws in rope and melt on wax to hold it, to make a kind of boxing glove.

This is the wire pen, which is built especially for the cockfighting. Although it’s illegal, the government don’t really make a fuss. This pen was sort of hidden; in so much as it was in a locked garden that we had to walk out of Trinidad to get to.

It’s hard to see how much blood shed there is in these photos, because the pen is made of red brick so it blends in (and there’s a fair bit of shadow as well).

That’s me on the left peering in, trying to get a better look. The guy with the cowboy hat stayed in the pen to referee, but he didn’t get involved very much. There’s lots of cheering and shouting like Dads at sports day and the owners don’t even seem to have to psyche up the cocks beforehand; it seems that if you put two of the same sex in the same space, they peck each other apart.

It can be a battle until death, but in this instance it was until one cock lay down on the ground and wouldn’t get up. Here are the loving owners checking what damage has been done when the fight was over.

The fight generally involves one cock trying to pluck feathers from the other one with its beak or clawing their opposition’s face, which was usually the target. They are literally dripping with blood by the end, and they are pretty much bald all around their heads.

Here’s Sergio with his victorious cock, feeling very proud. The cock had been blinded in the last third of the game, but he still ended up winning. He managed to get a claw into his opposition’s neck and hold him down while he trampled on him. Good tactics.

PHOTOS: ANNEKA LANGE