Pamplona: Not a Good Place to be If You're a Bull

I was going to title this one ‘Into the Madness: The Story of Pamplona,’ but after the bull fights Bill recommended this one that just seemed to fit. We went to Pamplona in time for the first day of the San Fermin festival, which honors some saint I’m not aware of with drinking a lot and killing bulls.

I’ll start at the beginning. Bill and I stayed just outside the city center and took a bus in on the first day of the festival. We wandered around a small area where the bus dropped us off and found some food that is native to the area, as well as some shops where we could buy the appropriate clothing (white shirt, white pants, red scarf, red sash). I thought to myself, ‘how lovely, this isn’t at all as crazy as I expected.’ Then we crossed the street.

Across the street and down an alley or two, we realized what we were in for. Crowds of people cluttered the narrow streets, all of them purple from being doused with sangria, which is apparently the thing to do. It’s actually so acceptable that when people dump buckets of it from balconies onto the masses no one really minds. All through the streets it was the same thing, people everywhere, wet with sangria, giggling like idiots. It was wonderful.

We ended up in a square where there was a little more room to breathe, and met some other travelers that we ended up hanging out with most of the night. Of course, Bill and I wanted to take part in the traditions of the festival, so we got some sangria, and before long we were involuntarily showered with purple by our new friends. It was a really fun night, but only until I realized I had been pickpocketed. Someone took off with my wallet, which totally sucks, but could’ve been worse. Moving on...

We got up nice and early the next morning to see the running of the bulls at 8am sharp. We left our hotel around 7, and reached the run at about 7:45. Unfortunately we were too late to get a good spot, but Bill held me on his shoulders, and I was able to see the back of one of the bulls. It was pretty anticlimactic.

The second day of the festival was much quieter, in fact, as we wandered away from the run there were people asleep all over the city. During the festival everything everywhere is closed besides liquor stores. There are no restaurants, no clothing stores, no grocery stores, nothing. It’s almost as if everyone just closes up shop and gets out of town. We were lucky enough to come upon some awesome paella though, so that kept us busy most of our second day in Pamplona.

That evening we got our tickets to the bull fights for the following night. We were pooped from a long day of eating and standing around so we decided to go to bed early and get up in time for the running of the bulls on the following day.

This next morning we were out of the hotel by 6:30 and made it to the run nice and early. There wasn’t much of a crowd, and Bill let me sit on his shoulders once again, so I got a decent look at the run this time. It was again pretty anticlimactic. The bulls come through at a slow trot surrounded by steer that keep the pace for them, and runners can easily avoid being gored by simply moving out of the way. I’ve heard it’s more treacherous toward the end as the bulls pick up speed on their way into the arena, where they run around with humans that taunt them. But we didn’t get that far.

We went home for a nice long nap before the bull fight that evening, and came back in time to check out the Ernest Hemingway statue just outside the arena. We made our way in and found our seats in the shady half of the arena. The sunny half is cheaper and much rowdier - pretty much the entire crowd across from us was covered in the telltale sangria purple.

The bull fights started promptly when several matadors accompanied by men on horses stepped into the ring to bow. When the arena was finally cleared the bull came charging out of a tunnel with some kind of tag stuck into it’s back, and we could see shining blood dripping from the spot. About 6 matadors take turns getting the bulls attention and then running behind walls that seem to really confuse the bulls. Eventually two men on blindfolded, armored horses make their way into the arena to distract the bull, and more often than not, the bull would ram the horse while the man stabs the bull with a long spear. Eventually the main matador makes his way out to the center of the arena with two short spears, and as the bull runs for him he quickly stabs it in the back and avoids the horns. He does this maybe 3 more times, until the bull is covered in blood with these spears sticking out of it's back.

Finally the matador faces the bull one on one with the infamous red cape. A good matador is one that doesn’t move his body, only the cape as the bull approaches. He keeps the bull going this way for about 5 minutes before brandishing a sword. The matador prepares for the bull to charge and just as it gets near enough he stabs it right between the shoulder blades. If the matador is a good one, the bull will die quickly, if not, they have to use several swords to finally kill it. The hardest part to watch is when the bull finally collapses to the ground while still fighting to stand. As it lays there another matador approaches it and stabs it several times quickly with a short knife right behind the ears. At the end 4 horsemen come out, attach the bull to a rope, and pull the lifeless body out of the arena.

There were actually 6 bullfights in the 2 hours that we watched, so we saw this process several times. They all went pretty much the same way, but the second matador was slightly gored (or maybe just grazed) on the side of his face, and was so sloppy he had to stab the poor bull 4 times before it finally died.

I respect that this is a tradition that’s been going on for years and years, but I don’t think I’ll ever need to watch it again. It’s hard to see an animal that doesn’t stand a chance slowly die a painful death. Bill and I were also surprised at how irreverant the atmosphere was. We expected the type of bull fights described by Hemingway where people are respectful of the bull and the tradition, and we were instead met by people dumping sangria on one another and impromtu marching bands playing college fight songs. It ended up being a pretty depressing experience, but one I’m glad we had.

Sitting just a few seats away from us were some of the people we met the first night of the festival, so we joined them for another evening that took us back to the first plaza for some fireworks, and onto some bars around the area. We met even more travelers, some that had hiked 500 miles on the St. James trail through Spain, and a few random people that just flew in for the festival. It was a late, fun night, and it made for a tough morning as we moved onto Bordeaux...