San Fermines!

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Note to Mom: You may find what you are about to read disturbing.

I am sure you have all heard of the famous Running of the Bulls, or San Fermines. This is a annual week long party dedicated to Saint Fermin, in which the town of Pamplona, Spain explodes and becomes the center of Spain tourism. This year it began at midnight on July 6th, with the Chupinazo and a parade of Saint Fermin through the streets of Pamplona. At 8am everyday following the beginning festival (Chupinazo), there is the famous Encierro, in which about a dozen angry bulls are released in about a quarter mile long double gated route through the streets of Pamplona to the Bull Fighting Ring. In these streets are hundreds of people, clad in all white with a red scarf, running for possibly their lives. There is a reason that before every Encierro the runners gather in front of a figurine of San Fermin and pray for his blessing and protection during the run. This festival is deeply engrained in Spanish and Basque culture, and despite how stupidly dangerous it may seem it has serious history and meaning to the people who participate.

Now that you have a little background on San Fermines, I can begin to tell you about my experience. For about a week leading up to the Beginning Festival, our Spanish teachers showed us videos of San Fermines. By showing us videos of San Fermines, I mean they showed the highlight reel of people getting gored, trampled, flipped, and tossed by angry bulls. Since they knew they couldn’t stop us from going to SEE the running of the bulls, they tried their best to convince us it was very stupid to participate. I encourage any reading this blog to look at some of these videos on YouTube. Frankly, some of these people deserved to get gored. Anyway after a week of being terrified by videos, the time came to get on the bus to Pamplona. We took the 2:30pm bus out of Barcelona, and by we I mean myself and five girls (In case you haven’t noticed from previous pictures, the girl to guy ratio on my program is about 8:1). We arrived in Pamplona around 9:00 pm. Luckily we all wore white, because it is not an exaggeration that every single person in this city was wearing white and red. We had a list of things to do when we arrived: 1. Lock up our backpacks 2. Buy red scarfs and bandanas 3. Buy booze. We accomplished all of these tasks, in said order. After this we headed to Parque Ciutadella of Pamplona, to score a spot to watch the nightly firework show. We arrived in the park about 45 minutes prior to the show, and it was already full of white clad drunk young Spaniards. Naturally we fit right in. The firework show was one of the best I’ve seen, probably because the Pamplona government apparently has no concern for public safety so the show was pretty much above our heads. It lasted a good 15 minutes. I took a couple videos, but I haven’t been able to get them to work on this website. The firework show ended with a group of drunk Spaniards behind us singing “I love you baby, do do da do do da da” and they didn’t know the rest of the song so just repeated this. We met some Spanish people from a town just outside of Pamplona called Irunia, and did out best to have a slightly drunken mutli-lengual conversation. By this time the rest of the people from our program who were coming to Pamplona as well had arrived so we set out to meet up with them. All together with everyone there we had a group of about 15, only 7 of those were guys.

The best way I can describe San Fermines by night is Mardi Gras. I have never been to Mardi Gras but from what I’ve seen in pictures, San Fermines is just the Spanish version. None of us had hotel reservations, but it didn’t matter because there was no shortage of things to do even into the wee hours of the morning. We spent our night drinking in the Parque de la Ciudadella, dancing in the packed Calle Estafeta, watching rounds of small marching bands process through the streets, and people watching. I have never seen so many drunk people together in one place in my life, so people watching was one of the most exciting parts of the night. Most peoples white shirts were no longer white, as a tradition of San Fermines is to drink lots of sangria and sometimes this sangria doesn’t do where you want it to go. At around 5am in the morning, the army of street cleaners began preparing for the 8am Encierro. And now begins the part of my story that my mom won’t like.

It came to decision time. For the guys in our group: To run or not to run. Being the educated young gentleman that we were, we decided to run. No bear with me, this was a once in a lifetime situation. How could I pass up on this experience, this right of passage, knowing full well that this may be the only chance I have in my life to participate? Me plus 5 guys and two girls began our careful planning of how to execute the run. All of us were scared shitless. We walked the entire length of the Encierro. We discussed the use of the fetal position. We drank red bull. The street around us almost completely clean, and cleared of drunkards the moment was drawing near. The balconies above were filing with people and cameramen, and the fence was lined with police and more people. Then before we knew it, we were being corralled by a bunch of cops out of the street and outside the fence. All of us, plus about two hundred angry and drunk Spaniards. One guy fought a cop. It was just staring to sink in that we just got robbed of our opportunity to run with the bulls, when a bunch of the people who got kicked out started to run down an alley. We followed, eventually they led us to another part of the Encierro, but we were still outside of the fence. By this time I was separated from my companions and was all alone. Seeing that we were outside of the fence and the fence was line with cops and people, I almost gave up on the dream. I climbed up on an elevated pilar next to a building, with the help of an Irish guy (I think Irish). I told him my story and he asked how many days I was going to be in Pamplona. When I told him just for today, he began to do what is commonly referred to as "peer-pressuring". He said they had three days in Pamplona, but if they were a young guy like myself with only one day they wouldn't miss their opportunity to run for the world. It is very hard to ignore two Irish guys who are incessantly yelling at your to "carpe-diem". I pushed my way through the crowd at the fence, gave a guy at the fence the "I'm doing this" head nod, ducked under and walked right past the cops who to my surprise did not care at all. Now I was in the street of the Encierro. Now what? I began to walk toward the area where my companions and I had decided to meet. As I walked down Calle Estafeta this is what I saw: Balconies filled with people, groups of Spaniards in the street holding rolled up newspapers and yelling something in Spanish at the people on the balconies, Spaniards and (obvious) tourists alike stretching and warming up for the run to come, and people doing the sign of the cross repeatedly. The latter was a bit unsettling. By luck, about half way down Calle Estafeta I came upon my lost companions. It was nearing 8, and by the looks on their faces they were all half regretting their decision to participate. I'm sure my facial expression was similar.

There was no talking between us, only mental preparation. It was then that the Chupinazo firecracker, warning the release of the bulls, went off. There was a roar from the crowd above, and in the streets no one was standing still. Our group slowly worked our way further up the street. Everywhere people we jumping up and down attempting to see over the crowd for a sight of the coming bulls. All at once the crowd around me started to run up the street, I hadn't seen the bulls yet but I took this as a sign that someone had. It was around the small curve called the Telefonica that the crowd paused for a moment. Everyone turned back, and it wasn't long before a second crowd was pushing us along. It was around this time that I heard the bulls hooves on the cobble stone street. If you are an adrenaline junkie, I have to tell you that running and hearing the sound of half ton bulls running behind you is one of the most scary, exciting, adrenaline filled experiences of my life. I saw an opening in the fence and for a split second considered bailing out of the street. Two things stopped me: 1. the thought of getting gored in the butt by a bull as I attempted to get through, 2. The man on the fence yelling "Corre! Corre!" which translates to "run for your life, but not too fast because I'd like to see you get hit by a bull". So I began to run faster. The sound of the bulls was getting louder, and the mass of people running alongside me was just entering the Callejon, a section of the Encierro where it narrows to the entrance of the bull fighting ring. I never looked back until I just cleared to the left as I ran into the ring. About a half second later, the bulls followed behind me. That's how close they got.

Now here's the part of the Encierro that my teachers did not warn me about. In fact nowhere in the description does it mention this small detail. The bull fighting ring was FULL of people in the stands. As I watched, still breathing heaving, the rest of the runners poured into the stadium with straggling bulls amongst them. It took about 2 minutes or so after I arrived in the stadium for all of the bulls and people to enter into the stadium. All the bulls were corralled out of the ring, leaving it full of runners. At this time I figured they would be letting us out of the ring, because a bull fight was about to begin. Well a bull fight did begin. With me and all the other runners still in the ring. When they let out an angry bull into the ring full of runners I suddenly realized the reason the stadium was full of people. They came to watch the bulls take out runners. The group of runners in the ring had two reactions: 1. They knew exactly what to do and quickly surrounded the bull, 2. They were terrified and fled to the circular fence around the ring. For me by the time I realized what was going on it was too late to get to the fence. What happened from here I can best relate to a human and a fly. The small little fly buzzes around and lands on you. You, annoyed by the fly, take a swing at it. 9 times out of 10 you miss the fly and he disappears for a later sneak attack. But every once in a while you whack that fly right out of the air. Now add a couple hundred more flies, and have them surround you and take turns landing on you then flying away. This is the way the massive circle of people handled the bull in the ring. Sometimes the bull seemed overwhelmed and wasn't sure what to do about the mass of people. Every time the bull turned its back a person would run up and whack its butt. Other times the bull would get fed up and just charge at the wall of people. The crowd would scatter, but sometimes the bull would single out a poor soul. This is when the crowd would cheer loudest. This was because once the bull singles you out, it's kind of hard to escape. The bulls horn tips were covered, but this doesn't mean that people weren't flung around like rag dolls. One guy got his pants ripped off. One guy wearing an american flag jacket, got pinned and only released by the bull being distracted by people slapping its butt. As for me, well for the most part I kept my distance. I stood in the circle of people, but behind enough people to make an easy escape. At one point the bull charged the wall directly in front of me, and I probably got about 5 feet from it. They rotated into the ring about 6 bulls, each bull having about 5 minutes of energy to make things exciting. Before the second bull came into the ring some of the runners crowded around the bull entrance. Many of them proceeded to interlock arms and lay in front of the narrow entrance. As I stood and watched, they opened the red wooden door and down a 30 foot long concrete corridor a angry bull came running. The men in embrace laying in front of the bull did not move. As I watched the bull leaped a three man deep bridge to enter into the ring. This was one the craziest things I have ever seen. After the second or third bull I started to lose energy. I hadn't slept in about 30 hours. I went to the wall of the ring, which was obviously lined with all tourists. To demonstrate how relatively safe the wall was, there were two fashionably dressed italian men taking self portraits with their backs facing the center of the ring. Completely oblivious. I would have tried to get out of the ring, but the locals in the stands and the few on the outside of the fence really didn't want to let anyone out of the ring. I saw a group of scared people get denied exit by a cop. So I stayed on the fence and did what the crowd was doing. Yelling and laughing as stupid people got caught by the angry bull. I'm glad I didn't intrude too much. After a Australian looking guy vaulted the back of the bull, he got attacked by three Spanish men who cussed him out and wagged their fingers at him. There was a lot of tradition behind this event, and an ironic respect for the bull.

This was by far the most exciting part of the day. After my adrenaline went away, I had a severe stomache ache from only drinking red bulls on an empty stomache. Many of the people in our group caught a 1030am bus ride home. The rest of us headed to a park to catch a nap under a tree. All of the daytime pictures you see are on Saturday the 10th, after about 4pm. When it was time to catch our 8:45pm bus home, everyone was exhausted. I slept the whole way home.

If you want to see a video of the day that I ran, follow this link http://sanfermines.com/. In the right corner will be numbers from 6 to 15. Click on 10. After this click on the large picture. The video should be on the next page.

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Photos

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Parque de la Cuidadella before the firework display

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Group of Spaniards from Irunia we met after the display

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Encierro monument

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Amphitheater filled with people in the park

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The brave runners. Or dumb. Whichever you prefer.

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Calle Estafeta by night

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No cameras were allowed for runners in the Encierro. I had to give my camera to the non runners, who took the two following pictures

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Encierro monument by day

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Street party.

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Taken from the Mercaderes Curve, of the Calle Estafeta street sign. These two points in the Encierro were made famous by Ernest Hemingway in this Novel, Fiesta

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Calle Estafeta after the Encierro

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Place where figurine of San Fermin is placed for the runners to pray before each Encierro

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Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Where San Fermines begins and ends.

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One of the many marching bands playing throughout the city.

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The first curve on the Encierro route, into the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. The wooden fence you see is what lines the entire length of the route.

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A procession of basque locals to the daily bull fight

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Me and some girls from my program in front of the building where the Mayor of Pamplona begins and ends San Fermines