Running of the Bulls! We took off early in the morning to make it to Pamplona for the opening festivities on the 6th, and it was an unbelievable time. We met two more Canadians on the train, Jaeson and Coady, who made our Canadian contingent even that much bigger (10 of us all together)! We arrived to a sea of red and white - everyone, and we mean everyone, was in the traditional San Fermin clothing. White pants/tops, red waist sashes, and red scarfs around the wrist or neck. Toddlers, elderly people, drunk young people - the entire town was ready!
The festival opens with the rocket launch, but what we weren't prepared for was the launch of liquor into the air at the strike of 12. Sangria, wine, champagne corks, beer, cocoa powder, ketchup, mustard...clearly our white clothes weren't white for long. Sketchy and I decided to head right into the thick of things while everyone else hung out in the shade on the side...some unbelievable videos when I get time to post them.
We mostly just wandered the city, taking the festival in. There are lots of cool things that happen during San Fermin. Locals run around to the balconies singing a song so that they'll get water poured on them, and usually we tourists get in the crossfire. There's also this ritual called the Fountain Jump, where brave (read: drunk) people climb this fountain, and jump not into the water, but into the arms of their friends, who are hopefully ready to catch them below. It was absolute mayhem. Bottles, food and drinks were being thrown on the people climbing, and we saw one girl go head first, and it's not likely that her friends caught her. Sort of a stupid thing to do, but entertaining nonetheless. We lost Bernard and Troy briefly in the madness (we need to leash them up...) but found them a couple of hours later.
After celebrating for awhile, we decided to try to catch a bullfight, since San Fermin has one on every day of the festival. We arrived at 6:00pm, only to find out it was sold out and it started at 6:30pm. Old Spanish men were trying to scalp tickets for 40, 50 EUR, but we eventually found a guy selling at face value for 10 EUR. Problem was, there was 10 of us, 8 who wanted to see a fight, so we looked for some more. At some point we only had 5 tickets, but the two guys that sold them to us snuck us in because he knew the ticket taker at the door. We were in the Plaza del Toros, now we only had to get into the actual bullfight!
We walked to every admission gate, but each one turned our guys away. Finally, on one of the lowest levels (10 rows from the ring), some guy miraculously lets us in with only 5 tickets, and we have some of the best seats in the house! It was a pretty cool experience. The bullfights themselves are cruel and unnecessary, but the showmanship and the level to which the locals appreciate the fight is what was interesting for me. We learned a lot about the rituals as well from the locals in front of us - they even fed us food and drinks!
The partying lasted well into the night, until we finally tried to lay it down in a park in Pamplona. Was cold, wet and uncomfortable, but a cool experience nonetheless. The boys tried to run at 7am but got caught in a riot and were pushed away from the running line, so it wasn't successful at all. Bernard cut his finger to top it all off, too!
Oh well, onto Barcelona we go!! We've got our Canadian contingent still together, so there will be good times had for sure! We'll be glad to leave this crazy town though, that is for sure!
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