Last weekend we went to Pamplona for the annual Festival de San Fermin where the famous running of the bulls takes place. It lasts from July 6th - July 14th, which means were were there on it's 4th night. The first thing you notice when you drive up is that every single person there is wearing the traditional festival outfit (white shirt & pants, red scarf & sash.) They let us off the bus and at first we didn't know what to do so we decided to go buy the outfit as well. They were selling it in quite a few shops for fairly cheap. After we were dressed we got some really bad hot dogs and went to explore.
The town was absolutely covered in people. Jeremy and I estimated around 250, 000 people at least. They were mostly young and drunk. The further we walked into the town the worst it got. People were peeing everywhere and being drunk and belligerent. What they were drinking was weird too. They had liters of coca-cola and boxes of wine which they were mixing together to make this drink, which I later learned is called, Calimocho. If they weren't drinking that they were drinking sangria and a few were even drinking beer. As Jeremy and I were getting accustomed to the town we discovered there was a carnival in the back.
The carnival was pretty cool. There were these weird rides that I had never seen before and they were all in Spanish. One was this bull ring thing where you tried to stay on the bull while the operators kept swinging the ring back and forth to get you to fall off similar to the electronic bulls they have at some bars but this one had 4 bulls and up to 4 people can get on each bull. The picture below is the background for the ride. Not really a kid's environment.
The night was rough. Around 2am we decided to try and get some sleep before the bull run but we didn't exactly have anything to do that with so we tried to find a place selling a blanket but no one was so we opted for the next best thing, a towel. We finally found a place that was selling them for 8.50 euro a piece :/ but it had to do. With our towels in hand we found a "nice" secluded place to sleep and get away from the crazy drunk people. We sat against a building and were ok for a while but couldn't really sleep because we were to paranoid about the drunk people walking by so we tried to find somewhere else. We went to a park and tried finding a place that didn't smell like straight urine so we could rest. We found a place under a tree and slept there for a while then Jeremy woke me up around 5am so we could find where he needed to be for the start of the bull run. Walking around at 5am you would think people would be done partying but no. Pictured above are people coming out of clubs and still drinking and some even still drunk. There were tons of people asleep in random parts of the city and trash absolutely everywhere.
Around 6am we found where Jeremy needed to be so I parted with him and made my way to the Bull Ring. Getting there was insane. There were so many people all trying to get there and we were all fighting against the street cleaners who had their huge trucks going right through the streets we were trying to walk up. The streets were dirty with alcohol, trash, and urine so I am glad they cleaned it for the runners but sad that I was the one who had to walk through the dirty water cleaning it all up. After I made it through that hell I some how found how to get into the bull ring and paid 6 euro for a ticket and got a pretty good seat since I was 2 hours early.
Waiting for the Bull Run to start was like waiting for a football game at OU. The crowd was pumped up. They were yelling, singing chants, and doing the wave several times. They had a band in the middle of the ring and someone also brought a huge drum and was doing beats in between the band's songs.
Before the bull run started they were showing clips on the big screen of the bulls and how much they weighed as well as clips from previous bull runs. At 7:45am the guys running sang the chant to San Fermin and they lit a candle at his little statue, then exactly at 8am they shot off a rocket and the bull ran began. The 6 bulls run a course measuring about a mile and a half followed by 6 steer who keep them on track. The runners get a choice to start wherever on the course they want with the intention of making it to the bull ring and running along side the bulls at some point in between. It was so intense. They showed us the bull run on the big screen and everyone would cheer when someone got hit by a bull or when people got trampled. It all happened so fast and 2 minutes and 29 seconds later the bulls entered the ring.
So the bulls enter the bull fighting ring and the crowd goes wild. All the remaining runners enter the ring and I thought for the most part it was over now. However, they actually let the bulls back into the ring with ALL the guys who ran the course.
The bull runs around for a while and the guys taunt it so it will run towards them. Some guys get hit or trampled but I don't think anyone got seriously injured. This was the worst part for me. The guys were being so mean to the bulls, pulling it tail or hitting its rear all to get a reaction out of it. After watching this I don't think I could actually sit through an entire bull fight without feeling horrible.
Once the bull has had enough they bring a huge steer in to bring the bull back.
Here is a video of what happens inside the ring.
And of course after the bull run comes a bull fight where all 6 bulls that ran the course that morning will get killed at 8pm that evening. We didn't stay for that because our bus was leaving at 9:30am but I'm glad we didn't. We were so exhausted and felt gross. We got ready to leave I slept all the way back on our 6 hour bus ride to Barcelona.
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