Under The Influence .. Possibly The Best Week Of My Life

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San Fermin Festival, Pamplona, 2006

I hadn’t planned to start out this way. Still quite substantially wrecked from the previous 2 nights inebriations and sleep deprivation, I boarded the coach in London for the 22 hour journey to Pamplona with a blank mind in more than one sense.
However, it seemed the same for many others also so it was more a case of letting the intoxications continue rather than commence.
For the next 8 days we, collectively to be known as Bus 4 (it’s a coach not a bus!), are to reach, push and ultimately break the limitations of our minds, our bodies and our souls. Bring It On!

Stage 1 of Being Under The Influence: Smart

One such soul, who discovered one of her own body’s limitations early on with a count of no less than 5 upheavals before we had even reached Spain, is forever from this day forth to be known as ‘Spewie’. No it was not me.

Other Important Notes Remembered from the Smart phase:
* Under the influence, the ferry from Dover to Calais looks like it’s constantly narrowly avoiding falling of the edge of the earth. The security personnel, and most of the other passengers as well, despite your best intentions to alert them of the impeding disaster, won’t appreciate your warnings.
* Paris is just another city, especially when you’re wrecked and passing through on a bus. Sorry... coach.
* If you fall asleep/pass out first, expect to be drawn on with permanent marker, have complete strangers pose for freaky photos with you and earn a social stigma which you will never recover from.
* Pamplona the town is really rather small but during the festival the population swells from 100,000 people to 1,000,000... Roughly.

Stage 2 of Being Under The Influence: Good Looking

After 22 hours of transit and an intoxication level reached bordering on uncivilized, our bus load teeters out into the warm aka blistering Spanish sun with the mission of securing our living quarters for the next week. Yours truly was stationed amongst the 3000 strong occupancy of tent city in an avenue with other Bus-4ions to be known henceforth as ‘8 Mile’.

Now the next stage becomes evident. Helped along appreciatively by the appearance of a large inviting swimming pool at home base and a day trip to the ritzy Spanish coastal resort town of San Sebastian. General malarkey ensures including theft of the beer bong from another bus, usage of said beer bong, swimming / splashing around / some general sort of immersion in the aforementioned bodies of water (the pool and the beach for those with memory problems..)
Spanish culture delved and explored with furious abandon, as is the true traveler’s duty and mission. Dodgy greetings and pickup lines in Spanish were thrown about with dally. Various coatings of Spanish tapas and paella were enjoyed. Spanish sangria was enjoyed even more.

Emergence of ‘The Board’. Those in the know, know what it is. Those whose names appear on the board have reached a level of social supremacy known only in a fantasy to those in the mortal realm of living. And if you don’t know what it is - well I guess you just ain’t cool enough.

Stage 3 of Being Under The Influence: Rich

Issues of money and whether or not you can afford your own next drink as opposed to a round for everyone else you’ve now become such great mates with you don’t know how you ever survived without them before and now that you’ve met, they are definitely going to be part of your life for the remainder of eternity (and they’ll probably be invited to your wedding) are now irrelevant. Who could rationalize the triviality of financial issues compared to the wealth of characters met and the life time experiences being had? So what that you’ll have to spend the next 2 months of your life walking everywhere cos you can’t afford public transport and living on 32p noodles for lunch AND dinner.. It’s Spain, it’s Pamplona, it’s a festival baby!

Stage 4 of Being Under The Influence: Invincible

The San Fermin Festival Opening Ceremony sees tens of thousands of people, dressed all in white with red sashes and bandanas tied on their wrists, cram into the Old Town Square of Pamplona which is roughly the size of 2 basketball courts and pelt each other with flour and eggs and shower cheap champagne and sangria over everyone who looks even remotely cleaner than a ragged, wet dog. Upon midday when the crowd crush has intensified exponentially and forced you to stop breathing for 10 minutes, the crowd, including you whether you like it or not, is forced along the streets of the old town but the humorless and forceful Spanish Policia. Buckets of water, and in one peculiar case milk, is thrown from the balconies above in a vain attempt to wash the messy, crazed, revved up crowd. Revved up in the same descriptive way that Ozzy Osbourne could be described as a tad slow or not terribly fond of animals.

The Mussel Bar.
A tradition started by intensely drunken Aussies and Kiwis many San Fermins’ ago and totally abhorred by the Spanish. Straight after the Opening Ceremony the antipodean crowd gravitates to this intersection for the experience that creates more injuries than the bull running. It simply put involves climbing a 6metre tall totem-pole like monument and diving off into the (hopefully) waiting criss-crossed arms of complete strangers who, like those jumping, have most probably have been on the lash for the last 5 days including the 3 hour long champagne and sangria mosh pit of that morning. This behavior is destined to, and will, last for the next 7 days.

The famous bull running begins the next day, and again every day for the following 6 days, at 8am. Now let’s get this straight from the start. I was always going to run. No influence or coercing necessary here. In fact I even made an effort to sober up a little and get some sleep. A moderately successful plan. The morning of the first run, wedging ourselves in with the other runners inside the barricaded course you could almost taste the atmosphere. Sangria and sweat. Excited anticipation. Anticipation of something no one in my immediate surroundings had ever experienced before. All of us newbies.

Stationed for the start halfway along the course just after the 90* turn known as Dead Mans Corner, the crowd starts up a light jog, occasional head turns to look for the bovine beasts we knew would be charging up behind us. Quickly escalating into a run, then a sprint, then a furious frantic desire to get out of the bloody way of the 6 x 600kg bulls suddenly appearing just behind us.

Pouring into the bull arena that marks the end of the run, grins and handshakes abound as we congratulate ourselves for proving our manliness. All the bull packs run through and the gates of the arena are closed. The bull herd runs through the arena into the pens, some of the runners in the ring escape the arena over the fence, but others stay put for the next installment of fun. One by one the bulls are let back into the arena to charge the crowd. So pumped is the atmosphere that people rush to lay down at the entrance where the bulls thunder into the arena. I had a sweet hoof-shaped bruise on my hand for days. Literally bumping into people I knew in London we threw high fives, toothy grins but always kept a watch on the bull and the path we had to go to get us close as we dared without getting a horn in the guts. One unfortunate soul wasn’t watching and was hit square in the back by the bull’s head and stomped on as the bull charged over him. Others were fortunate to get away from the irate Spanish for the serious offence of touching the bull. 6 bulls and 6 steers later the arena is opened and those of us left in the ring walk out with a strut that would kick the flared pants off John Travolta.

Stage 5 of Being Under The Influence: Invisible

Enter the final stage. Considering all the preceding week’s events, though depressing to have it end, it’s not entirely misunderstood why the “regular” populace chooses to gloss over your smelly existence.
It’s been an 8day+ bender - Complete bypass on the hung-over stage and gone straight into zombie zone. Do not pass go, you are dead.
You have not showered - and a quick dip in the pool will no longer get rid of the smell
There’s the 22 hour bus journey (including the 3 hour ferry) from sunny Spain to drizzly London which is used to polish off the remainder of the scotch.
You’ve seen the same people everyday in every manner of undress and bearing and are starting to have the sneaking suspicion that when your morals leek their way back into consciousness (astutely put aside in a locked cupboard under the sink for the week) that you’ve had entirely way too much fun.

VIVA SAN FERMIN!!

Great Links:
Courtney's Pics
Nyrie & Courto's Pics
Backpackers Tour Company Pamplona Pics

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