san fermin

Sorry for slackin, but I have updates finally!

Last weekend I went to Pamplona to see the historic “Encierro” (Running of the Bulls) of San Fermin. For those of you who don’t know, San Fermin is a weeklong celebration in Pamplona, Spain where every morning they have a bull run and throughout the day they party like crazy people.

I went on a whim (still without any money) because my friends had an extra bus ticket. We boarded at 11:30pm and arrived around 5am on Sunday (maybe got about 2 hours of sleep) to a bus station packed with zombies/passed out people in little red and white outfits (most of them drenched in sangria). Two of my guy friends wanted to run so they headed out to the main drag, but my other friend and I just wanted to watch so we gradually wander out of the bus station to find this field where there must’ve been a concert or something the night before because this huge field was just covered with an unspeakable amount of trash and passed-out people. It looked like the end of the world. My friend and I progress towards the main plaza and find the city even more destroyed with trash and greasy roads and either people finishing up partying from the night before or just starting the new day. Around 8am the run is about to start so we try to find a spot but it’s impossible. People are furiously scaling buildings and perching themselves on fences. Police are blocking of areas and hoards of people are pushing and shoving you. I think at one point in the crowd, my feet weren’t even touching the ground the people were pushing so hard. Finally my friend and I find this spot on some stairs close to the beginning of where the run starts but it’s still hard to see so I get on his shoulders and soon everyone’s copying us. The whole time everyone is singing and chanting and yelling for the run to start. Then you just start seeing everyone below running, but nothing’s following them. Then about 30 seconds later you see people running more frantically, and then you see the steers and a few seconds after that the bulls just running so fast. Our bull run that day was “el encierro de Miura,” with bulls from Miura. The only part I really got to see was a whole 7 seconds maybe of the bulls rushing past, but my friends who were running said it was insane, that they were not at all ready for the intensity of the run itself. The one guy said he had to take cover at one point so he slipped into a doorway and while he was there he watched a bull facedive into the ground. Of course, once that happens the bull starts charging people so it gets up and charges after this one guy, rams him in the chest, starts flipping him upside down, and proceeds to drag him on the ground until the bull lets go of him. I’ve provided video evidence (this particular scene starts around 1:40):

http://www.diariodenavarra.es/videos/index.asp?sec=2&id=2009071208541626&vId=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5kaXJlY3RhLnR2L0RETl9BY3R1YWxpZGFkLzIwMDkwNzEyLzIwMDkwNzEyX0VuY2llcnJvIGRpYSAxMi5mbHY-&pId=

Seeing the video, I felt kind of bad for the bull when he’s separated from the others and doesn’t know where to go. Then you see him destroy that one guy and you see just how dangerous it can be. I think in the end 5 people got injured, 2 of them seriously injured and given emergency surgery.

After the run, the runners stay in the stadium and are supposed to “play” with the smaller bulls with rubber tips on their horns for about an hour. But I didn’t see this part either, so my friend and I just sat outside the stadium watching everything while waiting to meet up with our friends. The rest of the day is spent going around the bars, but by 10am I know I was pretty wiped out having hardly slept and all. So my friends and I dragged ourselves around the plaza for a few more hours until 3 o’clock came and it was time to catch the bus. Like a San Fermin miracle, Mom called while we were en route to the station to tell me my credit card is working again so I could buy a ticket and make it home (my friends had been paying for me the whole day and would not have been able to buy my ticket home). All in all, an experience I will never forget.