I ran with the bulls (note the past tense)

When I arrived in Tarragona this morning, I had not slept in a real bed in 3 days. I had not showered or removed my socks in 4 days, I had a week long beard going, I had barely eaten...and yet somehow, I think I still had a smile on my face. But I must backtrack first.

I don´t think that if I were to write 10 000 words that I could come even close to describing what the last 3 days have been like. So what follows is only a brief account of what happened. I think that this story is best told over a good bottle of wine or a round a frosty pints that I hope to share with all of you soon. But here it goes:

The trip up to Pamplona in the car was with 4 other people, Dzido (of course), Steph and Krista (our two new friends from California) and Louis (a guy from Quebec City we met at the hostel in Madrid). So the 5 of us piled into our rented Peugeot and set off. The drive to Pamplona is beautiful, through the rolling hills and moutains of rural Spain. After a short stop, and getting slightly lost, which was saved only by Dzido and Louis doing some creative navigating, we made it Pamplona....at about 1:30am. The festival had already began and the first running was to be at 8am, so we had only a few hours to sleep. The car became our hostel (which was also it´s nickname) while Dzido and I slept on the ground in our sleeping bags.

We awoke the next morning and headed down to the run site. We had certain expectations about what we were facing. As I told many of you, the plan was to run for a little while and then jump over the barriers. Such primative notions were put to rest when we saw the course. There was pretty much no escape. There are some areas with fences, but they offer little protection. Basically, the run is down a very narrow street with no escape. We scouted the route, even went and saw the bulls in their pen as they waited for the chance to run us down. The excitement was building. Unfortunately for us, we chose a bad spot on the track to stand and at around 7:30 the police came in and started to remove everyone. We are not sure why, perhaps to get rid of tourists, or to lessen the crowds. But in any case we were removed from the track and forced to watch the first run. The girls were able to sneak back in and do that mornings run, bu the guys would have to wait until the next day.

Luckily, there is a lot to do besides just running with the bulls at this huge festival known as San Fermin. After a little nap, we began a day long party in the streets. The atmosphere is almost impossible to describe. Every single person is dressed head to tow in white and wearing either a red scarf around their neck or a sash. We had both, and I must say, I really wish I had more chances to wear a stylish sash! The streets are absolutely packed with people partying, drinking everywhere. They sell cheap champagne (3 euro per bottle) just so people can spray it everywhere. Throughout the evening random parades snake through the widy cobblestone streets. Some carry banners, usually messages supporting the Basques, but there were some that were just parades of intruments that people followed at random and danced along to.

We got really lucky because at one of the first places we stopped we made friends with a local guy called Xavier and his girlfriend. They are two Basques who live in Pamplona and who became determined to show us the REAL party, not just the tourist spots. For the rest of the day they were our guides to the chaos. We went to Basque bars, listened to their music, drank their drinks and partied all day long. It was amazing.

But the bulls run the next morning was still the priority, so we went to bed relatively early and got up the next morning at 6am to go down to the track and get a good spot. Nothing was going to stop us from running that day. The three boys looked quite the part. All decked out in white and red, exited and nervous as we waited until 8am for the first firework that tells you the bulls have been let out. The feeling on the streets beforehand is something I will always remember. Time seems to slow down as you check your watch constantly, hoping that 8am will soon arrive. Meanwhile, crews clean the streets of the debris from the previous night´s party. At 7:30 the track is closed off and no one else is allowed on. By this point the crowds on the streets have started to thin out a bit, as onlookers look for a good place to watch, which is hard to come by unles you stake it out early. The balconies that line the streets begin to fill up with people, who pay up to 2000 euros for the apartments for the week of the festival.

With 10 minutes to go before the run the crowd has thinned considerably. Those who don´t want to run have left and it is only those who will actually put themselves in front of bulls that remain. Dzido and I left Louis, who began the run in one of the corners, and headed for the straight away where we wanted to begin out run. At this point I my stomach was doing somersaults (also I was sick that morning, but that was from a long day of partying) and the anticpiation was reaching a fever pitch. At one point I looked down at my watch and it read 8am. My heart nearly beat out of chest. The next thing I heard was the first firework. The first bull was out of the pen. Some people around us began to run fast down the street, but those guys can´t say they ran with the bulls, they ran FROM them. We stood for a few seconds and heard the second firework that meant that all of the bulls were out of the pen. It seemed like hours, then the crowd started to push and we began to jog with it. Still, we wanted to make sure we didn´t just run to the end without having seen a bull. At some point the panic of the crowd reached a fever pitch and Dzido and I got seperated and it was every man for himself. I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where the bull was. You cant run with your head turned because of the massive crunch of people. The real fear is that if you stumble or the person in front of you stumbles, then you will fall and get trampled. The advice we were given is that if you go down, STAY DOWN. The bulls will try and avoid you, my problem was that the crowds wouldn´t.

So I pushed as hard as I could against the people in front of my and I noticed that no one was standing around looking anymore. I remember looking forward to avoid tripping, when I caught something in the corner of my eye. I was running down the right side of the track, towards the middle and I looked just in time to see the pack of bulls rush by me. I was maybe 2 or 3 feet from them, I thought I could easily have reached out and touched them as they went by me. Literally, there was no one between me and the bulls, I was on the very outside of the mob of people. The rush that I felt at that moment is something I will never forget.

I didnt have long to enjoy what I had seen. I kept running so as to get into the stadium but someone had fallen in the crowd and a pile formed in front of my. It took all the effort I had not to go down too as I jumped over it while being pushed from behind by the mob. I almost tripped, but managed to stay on my feet and continue towards the stadium. This sounds like it took place over a long period of time, but all of this happened in a few seconds, over a strech of few hundred meters (the entire course is only 800m) .

As I hit the crunch before the stadium I pushed my way through and entered the huge arena. The feeling of entering to a massive crowd of people cheering you on is another feeling that I will never forget. The adrenaline is at its peak, and suddenly I became aware of the fact that I was completely out of breath. I ran to the right as soon as I got into the stadium. Some people were climbing over the barriers, but I wanted to stay in the ring for a while. Then I heard the final firework that said they were all in their pens in the stadium. Some straggler of a bull was still behind me while I did the final strech. With the last firework comes a massive cheer from the crowd, while everyone on the ground in the stadium starts to congratulate one another. It is an insane feeling. You have just run with the bulls.

After a few minutes of looking around, Dzido was able to find me. After some celebrating he looks at me and asks ¨Is that blood on your shirt?¨ I hadn´t noticed it, and it wasn´t mine, but somewhere along the run my white shirt was stained with blood. I still have no idea where it might have some from.

What happened next is hard to describe. They actually re-release the bulls one at a time (and sometimes two at a time) into the ring full of people to...well...play with. The bulls run around through the crowd while we try our best to avoid them. The crowd cheers as the bulls hit some people and narrowly miss others. More people are bowing out by this time, jumping over the walls to get out. But we (Louis included, who narrowly missed the bulls in the corner and has just found us) decided to stick it out a bit longer. We ran with the crowd and saw people getting hit, trying to stay as far away as possible. At one point I saw a bull headed towards me as the crowd packed against the wall. I didn´t want to be on the outside so I decided to make a break for it and cut right in from of the bull. I was maybe 10 feet in front of it, staring at its face while it looked right at me, I was in the wide open, facing down a bull. It turned slightly, by the movement just caught its eye and it decided to go for Louis instead, who had to run away from it along the side. That was easily the scariest moment of my life. (A note on that picture, it was taken as a bull was being released into the ring, hence the fear in our eyes, Dzido was saying ¨Hurry Hurry, there is a bull in the ring!¨)

After playing with the bulls for a little while, we made our exit. I had done it. I had run with the bulls and escaped to tell about it. For those who think it is easy, I point out that getting to the stadium is considered a huge accomplishment, and that a 31 year old American was paralyzed the day before. It is not for the faint of heart. But after 3 years of wanting to do it, I have finally run with the bulls.

So that is my story. As I said, a lot has been left out and I hope to give a full account of it to all of you one day. But I am safe and have made it to Tarragona. I have one more night here in Spain and then it is off to London to find a job. The blog will continue of course, but this ends the travelling leg of the trip...at least for now :)