San Fermin Festival, the running of the bulls in Pamplona

http://www.nbc11.com /news/13668848/detail .html

Turns out that the day we chose to be at the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls it was the bloodiest and longest run lasting over 6 minutes. And all of the bloody action happened right below our balcony... well, maybe not ALL of it, but pretty much. Click the link to read the story then you can read on to read our interesting story.

We arrived in Barcelona very excited to be there. We knew it would be kind of a stretch for us since we are older than about 99% of the people there and we are not into drinking and partying all night long... we also knew we'd be staying in a room with other people we didn't know, sharing a bathroom and probably not getting any sleep (or a shower) for 24 hours, at least. Even knowing all of this we were excited to be in Pamplona for the San Fermin Festival. We were only going to be there for 24 hours for heavens sake and it was a once in a life time event - we were determined to make the best of it!! Like it or NOT!!

We arrived into town at about 2:30pm, perfect timing and we found a parking spot in an underground lot, no problem. We found our way to the HARP BAR to check in with Grahame Galloway and the Pamplona Posse, www.pamplonaposse.co.uk who we booked our balcony and sleeping accommodations through. We thought we would be sharing an apartment with other people but as it turned out, Grahame totally buffed us out and gave us our own private apartment! It was the tiniest little apartment I have ever seen, MAYBE 300 sf, and six long grueling floors of stairs up (no lift)... but the view from the teeny-tiny windows was incredible... and we had our own private view over the rooftops of the midnight fireworks display...it went on for at least 20 or 30 minutes.

Even six floors up in the tiny little apartment the noise was deafening...the bands below us played the San Fermin music while partiers follow singing the words to the songs at the top of their lungs. Yelling would be more like it. Drunk yelling. Loud drunk yelling. We closed all the windows, put in our super duper ear plugs and could still hear the music and 'singing'. Nevertheless, we got a couple of hours of sleep and woke up at 6:30 am.

We had to get out of the apt, down the six flights of stairs, through all of the drunk, staggering, and/or passed-out festival patrons... plus all the broken glass, empty bottles of beer and wine, throw up, human waste (I am totally serious about this) and get to our reserved balcony by 7 am. We made it with a few minutes to spare. Even though the walk from our little apartment to our reserved balcony space was relativly short...it felt like a very long walk...The smell in the streets was quite awful, actually it was the worst smell I have ever had to smell. It was a moist mixture of stale beer, sour wine, body odor, human waste, throw up, and then there were the street vendors cooking chorizo sausages...such an awful combination of smells...I gaged a couple of times at least...thankfully I didn't have any food in my stomach or I would have lost it. We saw people relieving themselves right in front of us, too drunk to care who saw them doing what. 

Finally we got up to the balcony and the view from up there was incredible...red and white everywhere. The runners below were full of energy and anxiousness. They were cheering and singing...The energy was palatable, even the swallows of the air were swirling around between the buildings singing their swallow song. They knew something was going to happen and it gave me chills.

It was nearing 8am and soon the streets below us became more and more crowded with runners, many saying prayers on their knees and making the sign of the cross over themselves for protection. The police were weeding out the runners that were females (women are not allowed to run the race) as well as people who were too drunk to run and getting them off safely off of the course for their own protection. Soon there was just a sea of red and white, no room to move. The clock tower ticked toward 8 o'clock, then we heard the dingdong of the cathedral bell in the main square...then the rocket sounded loudly and off the runners went, yelling and screaming as they took off in the same direction as the bulls that were coming after them. 

Six steer and six bulls run the course, there was a large black bull in the very back of the pack and he must have been pissed to be in the back because when he reached the area known as 'dead mans curve' he decided to gore three men right there. It happened so fast, there was so much action all around it was all too fast to take in, there were 7 people injured in this one spot and most of these injured were taken out by the pissed off bull and he did his damage right below our balcony. It was over in an instant, for us at least. If you were one of the unlucky men who was trampled or gored I am sure the moment lasted for a life time! We saw one man get trampled by a bull, but the man just laid there and did not try to get up. Believe it or not, this IS the right thing to do....which goes against everything your brain is telling you to do! The bull just trampled right over him and was off, the man stumbled up and could hardly walk because of the shock I'm sure, he took off in the opposite direction and looked as if he was going to pass out.

At this point our view of the bulls was over, they turned the corner and we couldn't see them anymore. so we ran inside the apartment and watched the run on the TV. As it turns out this same bull that gored three people below our balcony also did a lot of damage to many other people in the race. The news said that over 80 people were injured in todays race. The race usually lasts for a total of maybe 3 minutes...until all of the bulls are in the bull ring. Well today the race lasted for over 6 minutes! I believe it was the longest race ever recorded.

Added July 13th 2007 - I am very glad we went to Pamplona and experienced this event but I have no desire to ever do it again. It was wonderful, awful, invigorating, exhausting, crazy and unforgettable all wrapped into one. A once in a life time event. I suppose looking back it was one of the best experiences we could give to Chloe while traveling on this trip. She got to see drunken excess and what it does to a person. She didn't like it and I think it was a good education for her at this age in her life. We were in Pamplona for less than 20 hours and we were glad to leave but also excited to have been there. And as it turns out we were in Pamplona for the San Fermin Festival on a historic day. They are calling July the 12th the Day of Terror because of the length of the run which was 6minutes and 10 seconds, it usually lasts about 2 or three minutes and also becasue of all of the injuries that were inflicted by that one really mean bull. Nearly 80 people were sent to the hospital after the run on July 12th and 8 people were gored. All recovered in the hospital. Also as it turn out the two American guys who were gored in the backside were with our group in the Pamplona Posse. We toured the bull run route with them, they were both gored at the same time, by the same bull in the same place... they both recovered and Graham said they plan to run with the bulls again in the future.