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Published: July 21st 2006
There’s no good reason to have Run with the Bulls other than it seemed like a good idea at the time. Hemmingway must have seen something genius and manly about the festival of San Fermin and wasn’t old Ernest considered a Man among Men? Either way, it really wasn’t as scary as the Blooper reel you’ve seen on TV would indicate. Can you die while running with the Bulls? Yes. Can you get gored by an angry Bull and become paralyzed? Yes (and in fact someone did a few days prior to my run). But then again there’s an element of danger associated with walking out your front door everyday.
Running with the Bulls is not only about the rush…and what a rush it is…its more about the story and the pride factor associated with telling someone, yeah, I’ve run with the bulls…
Let me back up for a second because the eleven hours I spent in Pamplona almost never happened. Please forgive the length of this blog, I’ve already been asked a thousand questions about what it was like so I figure I’d write about the whole experience.
The lifestyle of Spanish citizens is one of relaxation
Fake Merrill
British guys who made ML shirts because of the Bull...that´s BULL!and comfort. The days start late and the nights are long. Thursday night, the night before my friend Vin was to leave for Paris, we all went out for drinks and stumbled home well after the break of dawn. I believe it was somewhere in the 4-5am range that someone had the grand idea to go to the Island of Ibiza the next day when everyone got off work. Ibiza is known for its beaches and night life which made it an easy decision. The most preventative aspect of the trip to Ibiza was the flight or ferry which were both either unavailable or muy expensivo.
With the idea that we were headed out of town for the weekend, Yenni, pronounced Jenny by us gringos, Will (my new Spanish expat friends) and myself started looking into what the Festival of San Fermin would entail. Trains were reasonable, and considering I had a Eurorail pass, much more of an option than another flight. The problem with Pamplona was that all hotels had been booked MONTHS in advance and the closest hotel we could find to the festival was three towns away.
Groupthink came back unanimous, take the 7:30pm train
San Fermin!
Yenni didn´t know how to tie the sash around my waist.... from Madrid, arrive around 11:00pm. We’d likely stay up late anyhow, as the culture and the festival would keep the partygoers shaking their butts till the wee hours of the morning anyway. We’d all try to locate a park at some point in the evening and huddle together and catch a quick nap before waking to see the Running of the Bulls and then catch the noon train back to Madrid. This was a crackpot idea from the very beginning which has to be why it was so much fun.
We never found our seats on the train as we went straight to the beverage car for some cerveza and to attempt to formulate a better plan than the one we had. Will and I decided that Jenny was on flirting detail and anyone that looked like they might have a hotel room with a balcony, Jenny would be obligated to flirt with in order to get us up on that balcony. As it goes, Balconies are the most valuable commodity of the festival. In Plaza Mayor of Pamplona, bouncers were charging 40 euros to let people onto a balcony that served no function other than people watching but
Partied Too Hard
This guy was out COLD on the sidewalk! balconies overlooking the path of the Bull Run can actually be rented out during the mornings of the runs for about what the entire room cost. Our goal was to find a free balcony and neither Will nor I spoke Spanish or had the sex appeal Jenny possessed.
Before we finished our first Cerveza, the bar car filled with patrons who had thought more than one step ahead of our hair brained idea. This would prove to be my first tailgate onboard a moving train. Premixed sangria, cocktails, beers, you name it, these Spaniards brought it into the car, and after passing the, I can withstand your foul body odor and poor English test, they were more than happy to share. The group we were assimilated into was a crowd of friends that spent a week together in Pamplona every year as a part of their vacation time from work.
During a train ride that lasted a little over three and a half hours, the beverage car sold out of all alcohol less than halfway into the journey.
The masses from the train spewed out into the streets of Pamplona shortly after midnight, after a short bus
ride from the train station and a quick stop for dinner. (Note: if you’re a vegetarian, don’t go to Spain. Period.) Knowing absolutely nothing about the town or the festival aside from the fact that they let Bulls lose in the streets at 8am, we figured we’d follow the crowds to the good bars and a good time was sure to find us. As evidenced by the raucous train ride into town, I was sure that a good time had already found us. The problem was that there was a crowd everywhere you looked and attempting to follow the masses was a mess. Instead we just wandered aimlessly, stopping here and there to grab a drink talk to some other tourists.
Its by pure dumb luck that we stumbled into Plaza Mayor at some point that evening and there really was no reason to leave. This was the spot to be. Just like every major plaza in Europe, the buildings that lined the plaza all had restaurants/bars and the place was filled with people everywhere you looked. This is where I ran into the Merrill Lynch imposters.
Naturally, having a connection to ML, I spotted the tee shirts
All Fake Merrill
The Audacity!
One guy gave me his card...Price Waterhouse Cooper... and struck up a conversation. After twenty minutes or so of dodged questions regarding what office they were from and what type of work they were doing, one of the guys gave me his card that revealed he worked for Price Waterhouse Cooper and he lived in London. They were all British Imposters that were wearing ML America tee shirts. Its all Bull…
Regardless of the Bull they were throwing around (forgive the pun) they were good chaps on a Stag weekend and if I’m not mistaken, the guy in the picture getting Sangria poured all over him was the one getting married. I bumped into a few of them the next morning, but I’ll get to that in a second.
So the night went on and eventually wore down when I took a seat against a wall where my narcolepsy took effect and I immediately fell asleep. I woke when it was light out with Jenny asleep on my shoulder and Will asleep on hers. The masses were already mulling about but unlike the night before, there was a discernable direction of movement. We all jumped up, made sure we hadn’t been robbed in our sleep, and headed
Dinner in Madrid
Will, Jenny, Myself & Vin off in the direction of the movement.
Sure as the sun rose too early that morning, we found ourselves staring at the ten foot fences erected to keep the bulls on track during their run. There are actually two sets of fences set up at intersections. The first is to keep the Bulls from running off the desired parth, the second fence is to keep the crowd far enough from the first fence, leaving a spot for runners to jump towards in case of emergency.
In my early morning state, remember, I’m no morning person, I gave my camera to Will who along with Jenny decided not to run and I wandered into the line of fire, ready to test out my withered track legs. I’d like to thank Will at this point in time for taking exactly zero pictures after I gave him my camera. As the only one with a camera, I asked them to take some shots of the run as I figured I’d be in no position to be turning around and snapping shots. I did however run with my video camera recording and as soon as I can figure out how to take
the video footage and turn them into freeze frames, I’ll post those pictures as well. They should capture the madness of the moment a lot better than the zero still shots that were taken that morning.
The way it all goes down:
Up until about 7:30am you are allowed to walk wherever you want. At that point in time, the police begin to clear the space between the fences and help those who wuss out at the last minute to escape the running path. The same goes for visa versa meaning those who are talked into running by an evil friend or those who think it’s a good idea. I was neither and unfortunately had premeditated that if I made it to Pamplona, there was no way I could look at myself in the mirror if I didn’t run.
Tensions rise every minute as runners tell stories about what it was like the day before or the last time they ran. I didn’t realize that people actually do this more than once. I was under the impression that it was a one and done type of experience but the people I would up standing next to while stretching my muscles had ran the past four days. This is when I heard the story of the American who was paralyzed while running this year. Perfect timing guys…
Strangely enough I didn’t feel scared. That’s not machismo speaking, I think its actually ignorance. I knew the basics of what is supposed to happen, and of course, I’ve seen the blooper reel on TV so I knew what not to do, but I think my lack of information really helped me keep a level head on my shoulders and rely more on common sense rather than getting caught up in the moment.
Around 7:55 all those in the street start walking forward, towards the Bull Ring. Everyone walks slowly at first and then the pace quickens with heads turned back at the crowd behind you rather than at the path in front of you. I ended up walking with both arms fully stretched out, one in front and one behind so that if someone ran into me or I ran into someone, I had at least a few feet buffer zone to avoid knocking someone over or being knocked over myself.
At 8, a gun shoots off notifying the crowds that the Bulls have been released into the streets. It is usually in the first few hundred yards that the Bulls do the most damage. The idiots who set up shop at the beginning and intend to run the entire length of the streets with the Bulls are the ones who end up with a horn up their ass or jumping for their lives over or through the fence. I never walked the whole path so I couldn’t say where I started my run but it had to have been about ¾ to 1/2 way from the Bull Ring based on the amount of running I did.
The whole run is supposed to last less than 5 minutes. So after the first minute of a dead sprint, the crowd thinned considerably. Some made like the wind and ran into the Bull Ring without ever having seen a bull on their run. Later I learned that these people were booed mercilessly until the first set of bulls entered the ring. Others, like myself, slowed down with no apparent danger around. As it goes, as soon as you slow your pace, you are forced to quicken it due to the runners a few hundred yards behind you who thought the same way.
After what felt like I had been running for two maybe three minutes I thought it was a good time to stop running and look for cover. The street I was now on was littered with Balconies and is the final stretch of town before entering the ring. I ducked into the first available doorway I could find but quickly realized that standing sideways, I was still only covering half my body from potential harm. I stepped out into the street no more than a few feet away I saw the first set of horns. Half of my body protected was more than none so I jumped back into the doorway just in time to have the rest of the herd of about six Bulls stampede by me.
The bulls literally come out of nowhere. One minute all you can see is a crowd of people and like Moses parting the water, the bulls have a divine like ability to part the sea of people instantaneously.
After the Bulls ran by me, it was no more than thirty seconds before I too entered the Bull Ring. This was a sight I was not expecting. Again my ignorance took hold as I thought the run was the main event of the morning. Oh no no. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house which I thought was a little strange because the Bulls run straight through the ring into their holding cells. I also didn’t know that there was a second set of Bulls let loose, which would explain why there was a second gunshot not too long after the first. Fortunately I was safely within the Ring when the second set of bulls cruised through a crowd of a few hundred runners sharing stories of what they saw and how close to death they came, even if their stories are completely fabricated.
I had my video camera out and was filming the crowd when the first baby bull was released into the crowd. As it turns out, while the big bulls are running the streets of Pamplona, the baby bulls are getting smacked around and getting pissed off, waiting to be released into a crowd of tired yet energized and slightly still drunk revelers. After the last set of running bulls come into the ring they close it up and that’s when the real festivities begin.
So with a few hundred people still inside, they let out bull after bull, but always one at a time, into the crowd. Now I think these smaller bulls were more scared than angry as they ran around and around in circles and only lunged at people who got in their way. It just so happens that at this point in time, which is why there was no empty seat in the house, everyone in the ring tries to smack the bull on the ass as it runs by. The more times it gets smacked, the more likely it is to turn around a gore someone. The organizers of San Fermin aren’t stupid, they’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. The bulls horns are equipped with little corks to prevent from being cut open. Its not the horns that are the scary part of being in the ring, nor is the actual bull itself, its all the other people around that aren’t paying attention. I saw more people get run over by other people than I saw get run over by the bull, and the bull did manage to run over a few people.
The highlight of the hour long ass smacking session was when some guy, had to have been from Oklahoma or somewhere because even Texans aren’t this dumb, grabbed the Bull by the horns, not a metaphor, literally grabbed him by its horns and began to wrestle it to the ground. The guy actually had the Bulls head turned and headed down when out of nowhere, some huge older guy came out of the crowd and tackled, not the bull, but the guy wrestling the bull. What the hell either of these guys was thinking is beyond my comprehension. The only thing I could think of was that they got in a fight somewhere along the line but what I saw was idiocy in its purest form on both counts. Fortunately I have the whole thing on video tape!
So that’s about it! Run for your life for five minutes, try not to get gored or trampled by bulls or men and then run around in a ring for an hour with other bulls and try not to get gored or trampled. Seems like a stupid sport but I have to say, my heart was racing as fast as it ever has for over an hour and didn’t come down till I got on the train a few hours after I left the Bull Ring.
When I did eventually saunter out of the ring, feeling like more of a man than I ever have, I checked my phone to find that Jenny and Will had called me 17 times. They didn’t realize that the run ended in the ring either and heard a rumor that an American had been hurt during the run. Jenny, sweetheart that she is, called the hospitals, the police, and anyone of authority in Pamplona to try to find me. They just didn’t check the most obvious place they should have. Right in the middle of all the insanity. Though I’d only known them for a few days I thought I’d revealed enough about myself to inform them that I’m resourceful enough not to get trampled and would likely be in the thick of things when it all went down.
Either way, I found my friends, called my parents and celebrated a successful run with a beer at 8:30am. The scary part about it is that I’d love to go back, preferably to watch from a balcony, but who knows, I may run again……
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Tom Doody
non-member comment
John...I'm eternally envious of your crazy trip. I can't believe you haven't run out of funding yet.....that credit card bill is going to be huge. I certainly hope you hooked up with Yenni by now.