Pamplona – Running of the Bulls
What a week! This has to be one of the maddest things I’ve ever done with an absolutely fantastic group of people 🙂
Driving to Spain
That’s right people, 22 hours on a bus; two of those spent crossing the channel on the ferry. We only stopped every four hours which is amazing considering we were all drinking and the chemical toilet on the bus wasn’t smellier.
The sun set and I fell asleep in France, and when the sun was rising I was waking up in Spain. Melissa (my London roommate) and her friend from San Diego, Josh, and I spent the afternoon chilling and exploring. We’re on a huge campsite called El Molino with about 1000 First Festival people. There’s a swimming pool, where we spent the afternoon, a bar, restaurant, store with a club outside that whole area, and the local town was just 15 minutes walk.
Uncle Noel, one of the drivers, has been giving away tips to me, including the price of sangria in camp, €6.50, compared with the road houses on the way, €1.35, and some of the nicer places in town where you can get a cheaper and nicer feed than camp.
Sunday
Josh, Melissa and I walked to town in the morning – although we didn’t realise how early it was. We got in at 7.30am so it must have been 8.30am up the mountain and not a lot was open, but we took some amazing pictures of the views, played on the swings and walked down through the dark, narrow, alleyways with stray cats slinking nearby.
Apart from five hours sleep I’ve been drinking sangria for the last 24 hours. I think. I lost count.
Monday
This morning Bridget gave us the wake-up call – worse than school camp – blowing her whistle and wrapping on tents, calling us all individually by name to move our arses. We had an hour to have breakfast, get our whites on and get shuttled into Pamplona for the opening ceremony of San Fermin: the Running of the Bulls.
It begins similar to La Tomatina, but the aim is lots of sangria. We got into town and us hardcore Pamplonites left the others in the plaza and made our way to the town hall. For three hours we stood and waited for the midday canon to sound the opening, until then we drank sangria, sprayed sangria and got sprayed with sangria.
The Spanish pushed their way into the mosh pit with even more sangria and people were pushing, pulling, smothering. We had a big group of us and all managed to stay together and do some crazy chants, stamping our feet, clapping, going absolutely wild. I ran into Lija’s flatmates Jen and Luke afterwards in the plaza, and Melissa and I lost Josh not to be found until several hours later. We had made our way up to the White Horse pub at the top of the hill, with the 1000 other First Festival travellers.
I didn’t come out too bad – covered in sangria, a few bruises, and cuts on my ankles from all the broken glass on the ground. Oh, and really drunk haha! I also managed to chip my tooth the night before on a bottle of sangria – teaches me to use a cup next time!
Tuesday
We were woken up by Bridget at 5am chanting “Bus One!” and “Get Up” along with constant whistle blowing. There was no breakfast until after; it was straight on the bus to town. The runners went off to Town Hall and the rest of us to the arena where we bought tickets off touts for €10 each. We found good seats and we sat. And we waited. We were in at 7am. The bulls run at 7.55am. The arena slowly packed in, and did Mexican waves, and went crazy when we heard the first siren, signalling the bulls have been let out of the pen.
The second siren means they’re on the track, coming fast. There were several ‘false start’ groups, runners who entered the stadium too early, well before the first bulls came in, and they got pelted with bottles and rubbish. The crowd was going off when the bulls ran through, electric atmosphere, they run through and out the other side where they are penned off. Then six calves are let in one at a time, the baby bulls horns are capped but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.
The runners in the arena try to whack it on the bum with newspapers or their hands, but there are rules. You cannot grab its horns or try to ride it, because the Spanish locals will beat you up. We sat for almost an hour watching the runners jump on the walls, and being flipped and stomped on.
We had breakfast at camp and lazed the afternoon in the sun before heading back to town and straight for Boogie Street, which was throwing out some great Spanish tunes with a mix of ACDC and other classics. I only had a bottle of sangria but we were dirty dancing the night away and dinner was forgotten. We watched the fireworks by the bus station and headed home.
Wednesday
Girls aren’t allowed to run, and it is highly frowned upon by the Spanish. They have no mercy and will throw you out of their way or into the way of the bulls – they don’t care. So a few of the girls and I sorted out my ‘costume’ to ensure I wasn’t thrown out by the police when they try to decrease the crowd of runners just before the race. I wore my boardies, my sangria stained t-shirt from the first day, my hair tied up and back into a cap from Tess, Craig’s hoodie over my head while I was waiting and then tucked into the jumper while I was running, and Melissa’s make-up artist side-burns and darker eyebrows. Transformation complete.
We ran into town hall, Mitch and Ben my support buddies, and had to stand within the wooden fences for an hour waiting. The amount of double takes I got from the surrounding males was hilarious and I made a few new buddies standing there.
Ten minutes before, they let us begin walking to spread out, so we walked up through Town Hall, turned the sharp right at Dead Man’s Corner and stopped 100 feet up. The path seemed straight forward enough but my adrenalin began to grow, and after the siren went it blew through the roof. I was ready to run but the guys were false starting again, and a Spanish guy next to me yelled to me “Not yet – uno momento…uno momento!” because it takes the bulls a few minutes to exit the stables, run up the hill, through the town square and down to Dead Man’s Corner, a sharp right hand turn the bulls have trouble figuring out – they sometimes run into it, collapse and go skew-if.
The adrenalin starts pumping hard, and I just want to go but he’s yelling wait, the crowd is running past me, and then I see horns roar around the corner as the Spaniard yells “Go!”
I take off like a bat out of hell, arms out in front to push people out of the way, many of them still standing there. There’s a pile up ahead of me which I see as I’m about to fall, so I push off the person I almost fell on and keep running. I jump over people, knock them out of my way and yell “move it” at the top of my lungs.
The bulls pass me maybe 200metres from where I began, but a pack of steers usually follows close behind, so I had no reason to slow down.
You barely realise the crowd cheering and whooping outside the arena, your blinkers are focusing on the tunnel that dips down and brings you into the middle of the bull ring. It’s still a hazard which narrows in and causes even more pile ups. I had to jump over more people not to get caught in it and then headed straight in to the left side of the bull ring to a cheering crowd packed into the arena, and the runners in the middle who’d already made it.
I found people I knew and gave them hugs and high fives, happy to have made it in. Again I ran into Lija’s flatmate Luke, and then found my mate Ben.
Once they shut the gates they brought out the first bull. I got told to stay on the wall but the first bull to come out got angry and went mental, head butting the wall and these guys who had to somersault backwards to get away from it. One got pinned to the wall and then the bull lost interest. Screw that to staying on the wall.
So I stayed in the middle which wasn’t so bad, it just meant constantly watching for the crowd to part. On ground level you had no idea where the bull was until it was coming at you, heading your way.
Let’s just say I got as close as I needed to, and Ben got too close – the bull knocked him flat and ripped open his knee. Of course I had the first aid kit, so patched him up nicely, but the salt water in San Sebastion did it good too.
After our second early wake-up, we headed straight to San Sebastion after the bull run, and our whole bus was asleep. It didn’t look like it was going to be the nicest day either.
Melissa, Josh, Ben and I wandered through the old town, and eventually found a nice place to eat – I had paella and pork. Before I ate I had to excuse myself to the ladies to make me feel more like a lady. I ditched the boardies, wiped the make-up off and got into the girliest dress I own. It felt good! We headed over to meet up with everyone else at the surf beach, but they were all sunbaking, so I headed straight for the waves.
Boy was it good! I haven’t been in waves like these for months, if not years. I was in there on my own for a while, luckily, because my bikini top couldn’t handle the pressure. It was made more difficult when the boys decided to come in. The waves got so big that we jumped out by 4pm and met everyone else back at the bus for a quiet trip back to camp.
We found out the other hidden bar did hamburgers that were the same price as the main bar, but rather than plain and cooked long ago, these beauties were cooked in front of us and included salad, bacon and egg with the meat. Sitting in this Spanish outdoor hut with the sun setting over the river and the mountains and chatting away was just perfect.
Thursday
Another 5am start so I wasn’t having a big night – even though I had Bridget galumph into my tent at midnight telling me to F***ing get up and get pissed. She was hilarious, and already drunk, but I wasn’t having it so I told her where to go. Unlike the rest of our bus, Ben and I were going into town to watch the next bull run from outside the arena, just outside in fact, where I found a good spot on the fence. We had to wait an hour of course, and it got busier and busier. People were standing on each other to get a good view – I had a Spanish guy hanging off me, which he quite liked. His English was simple and my Spanish absurd, but we both had a great conversation!
It was different again waiting for the bulls to come past, watching the men running, tripping, being hit. And it was over like that. We walked down to the stables to see where the bulls are kept and let out, and the fences are already being ripped down until the next morning to free the roads during the day.
We had to suffer the rest of the day at the campsite waiting for our 8pm departure to Paris overnight. There were no shuttles – only one bus going back to camp at 9.30am, which we had to run to catch, and only just made.
I packed and then baked. Too much. I now have sunburn on the back of my legs under my bum OUCH! For some reason I got a sugar fix from lemonade, went a bit loud on the bus and then crashed out ten minutes into the film Bridget put on for us. I slept pretty much the whole ten hour trip – fine by me!
Friday
We got into Paris at 7.30am, freshened up but couldn’t check in till 3pm and head out to town. I went off and did my own thing because I’ve been to Paris twice, so I got off at Invalides, where the military houses are (similar to Chelsea Barracks), then walked up past a few of the museums across the river and into town. I followed this quaint looking street on the prowl for coffee, but it turned out to be the New Bond St – boutiques for Cartier, Gucci, YSL, Louie Vuitton etc and the chic petite bistros sold their coffees for €6.
I decided to head back towards the river, where I walked through the Jardin de Tuilleries (supposedly Madonna’s kids were there at the fun-park but I wasn’t paying much attention!) I could smell coffee and it wasn’t bank breaking so I went for it. I sat with my legs on the fountain €3.30 cappuccino in hand, admiring the view of the Louvre.
After I found out under 26 EU citizens get in for free, I spent an hour looking at the French paintings, then made my way up the Champs Elysees with a group of older Australian tourists whom I’d started a conversation with. The Champs was being set up with viewers stands for the end of the Tour de France.
I caught the train back for check in at 3pm, had a shower and headed out to the cemetery where I saw the graves and monuments of Chopin, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Vincent Noir. Wilde’s was eccentric just like himself.
We all went out to Montmarte for dinner – I had escargot and confit of duck – absolutely amazing! Then we walked up to the Sacre Coure and down to a bar next to the Moulin Rouge.
Saturday
I took Ben around the Notre Dame, then we got lost in the Louvre – quite literally, we even had a lift open its doors to a boarded up level, quite scary at the time. It was getting claustrophobic and I just wanted out. Once we got to street level, we walked through the gardens, up to the Opera House and back to the hotel.
Melissa and Josh bid us farewell – a topless au revoir from Melissa! – and the bus ride home was a cheese and vodka infused journey of epic proportions. I was eating a brie by hand, we had a hold up at immigration (one of the boys had visa issues and was sweating bullets when he jumped back on the bus), there was too much swaying on the ferry, and every drop off point incurred multiples moonies from the boys. I responded the only way possible and flashed back at them.
I got two very distinct praises in France. The first is that about five people commented that I’ve got the nicest passport photo they’ve ever seen, which is surprising because everyone says their passport pictures are crap, myself included.
And in Paris I had a basic conversation with a French shop assistant – and she thought I was French and on finding out otherwise said I had very good pronunciation. It made my day!
🙂 What an awesome trip!
Tags: Travel
marzipan_mad
Leave a Reply