7. San Fermin!

Kalimotxos in the middle of the day

Two things have especially blessed my trip so far, weather and timing. Other than the chilly weather in Buenos Aires I seem to remember mostly sunny beautiful days. Also, the timing turned out just right so that I was able to catch both Bastille Day in Paris and the San Fermin festival in Pamplona!

San Fermin is also known as the Running of the Bulls. It’s a week-long annual festival in Pamplona in the northeast Basque country of Spain. Festivities include various parades, bacchanalian-scale mass drinking and partying, the actual running of the bulls, and bull fights. The partying, running, and bull fights happen daily. Runners get up at ungodly hours to line up to run; ironically they end up waiting around two hours for a run that ends in about three minutes. Drinking and general tomfoolery beings early in the day and continues through the wee hours of the night. The only reprieve from the Bacchanalia seems to be the few hours from about 6am to 8am when they powerwash the streets so that the mix of spilt alcohol, urine, and vomit don’t accumulate and ferment.

I was surprised and delighted by how local the festival still felt despite the hordes of international tourists that come every year since the festival became widely know from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The most touristy parts of the festival are probably the running on the first two days, in which the runners seemed to be mostly foreigners. After this the runners seem to be more local as the big wave of tourists leave after the beginning of the festival. The party in the streets is surprisingly mostly locals. This is possible because the large numbers of foreigners are diluted by literally the entire city of Pamplona. I swear the entire city, grandpas grandmas babies and dogs, ALL come out to party. Those of age drink sangria and kalimotxo (the local drink combination of red wine and coke, tastes much better than it sounds), everyone is dressed in the traditional white and red, dancing is common and spontaneous, and everyone is in the festive spirit. The only comparable experience I’ve had is probably Oktoberfest in Munich, where seemingly the entire city also mobilized to party.

Watching the run from the arena

Before running with the bulls, I cautiously planned to watch the run first to get whatever relevant intel I could to avoid getting into a hairy situation when I would run. We got seats in the stadium on the second day of the festival, and watched footage of the live run on the jumbotrons. We got great views of the runners and bulls rushing into the arena. The runners who came in before the bulls got boos and bottles thrown at them for their cowardice, but the runners who came in alongside and right behind the bulls were cheered like conquering heroes. The most dangerous part of the morning festivities in my opinion came after the running ended. The runners stay in the stadium, and they then proceed to let out young bulls with ball-tipped horns one by one. These young bulls are extremely aggressive, and unlike the mature bulls who ran the course (who really only wanted to just run to the end and rarely become aggressive towards runners), the young ones were out for blood. The brave/foolish runners who stayed in the arena often slapped and taunted the bulls, trying to get as close as possible. This resulted in lots of people getting flipped, rammed, trampled, etc. No one was gored as the horns were tipped with plastic balls but there were plenty of people who I’m sure got concussions and broken ribs. As wild and chaotic as the proceedings were, locals made sure that the bulls (which are considered sacred) were treated with due respect. Any foreigners who were foolish enough to pull the bulls tails or try to ride the bulls were immediately pulled off and rewarded by a beatdown by local runners, a brand of street justice that was not only tolerated but celebrated in the festival.

Yup, that’s a guy, on top of a bull…

Sergio, my accidental guide to the bullfight

In the evenings the bulls that ran the course in the mornings were brought out again for the evening bullfights. I got tickets from scalpers outside the stadium into the cheap seats in the nosebleeds. Only when I arrived at my section did I find out that while the pricier seats in the shade were quiet and peaceful and great for carefully watching the action in detail, the cheap seats were a huge party filled with young Spaniards. I was the only foreigner in my section as far as I could see, but the Spanish kids around me were as welcoming as could be, and managed to warn me of the common practice of spilling wine and kalimotxo on each other in this section in time for me to put my camera away before the deluge began. Sergio, the student next to me, knew some English and explained to me the basic traditions and rituals of the bull fight, as well as the drinking songs that the entire stadium seemed to know by heart. It was quite overwhelming to watch the bullfight while the rowdy crowd rained wine on each other, have sangria and snacks literally forced in my mouth, all while the drinking songs were being belted out in unison. It was some of the warmest and most aggressive hospitality I’ve ever experienced, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Before and nervous

It wasn’t easy but with a lot of discipline I managed to not be hungover for the morning of my run. We headed out to run on the third day of the festival, with a pack of bulls that turned out to be much more aggressive and quicker than the first two days, and with a crowd of runners that was much more local than tourists than the first two days as well. Having done some research before, I positioned myself after “deadman’s corner” where many bulls slip wide on a sharp turn and often run into and trample people. I elected not to get involved in that potential disaster and waited  after the turn on the side of the street for the first pack of bulls to arrive. The pack came blazing down the street and the chaotic panic and fear of the crowd felt very very palpable. I let the pack run past me at a “safe” distance of about 3 feet, trusting that they would not decide to turn their horns at an inopportune time. Once they passed I sprinted after them, knowing that I had to make it through the arena entrance before the last bulls or else they would close the doors. I stayed within sight of the first pack up to the entrance, but was surprised to see them close the gates right after the first pack went through. I ended up with a crowd of runners piled up in the tunnel entrance to the arena, crowding up against the gates with building panic as we knew that the second pack would be closing in soon. Some runners tried to climb over the gates only to be beaten down by police, others climbed underneath a small crevice on the sides of the tunnel into the stables on the sides to avoid the incoming pack of bulls. I decided to hug to the sides again. The second pack came rushing in and the gates were only opened at the very last second narrowly avoiding the people left at the gates getting rammed by the bulls. I ran in right after the last bulls and came into the arena with more adrenaline than I had ever felt before. Hearing the roar of the crowds as we came into the stadium floor was a rush that I will never forget. Every runner felt like they had just cheated death, and as I found friends in the crowds we congratulated each other in making it through the chaos unscathed. All in all, Pamplona in San Fermin was an unforgettable expereince, I still get a bit of an adrenaline jolt just remembering and writing about it!