Of San Fermín and Bull Fights

We arrived in Pamplona the day the festival started, literally minutes before the noon cannon sounded the kick off. Our Scotsman friend Alistair arranged to rent an apartment for the three days we would be staying, and it was right smack in the middle of everything. As in, we walked out the front door, down the street about 40 yards, and we were bang in the middle of town. It was madness.

None of us had a camera to record these first moments, unfortunately. The street was clogged with people dressed in wine-stained white and red, drinking wine and cokes, champagnes, beers, and as much booze was flying through the air as was being consumed by our fellow festival goers. We were at this square, and there really were this many people. Here is another great one...

We had smartly decided to all wear our sneakers rather than flips, which was a really good thing. The streets were covered in garbage- plastic cups and bottles, food wrappers, broken glass and wine bottles... ambulances were parked here and there to take care of those who had partied too hard, and we saw more than one person sitting by with bloody feet, slashed by broken glass. Every morning, after the bulls had run through the streets, the street cleaners would be out, cleaning away the night. Sweeping and rinsing away all the piss and booze and trash, just piles of it.

We spent a good deal of time on the grass there, watching all the other drunkies and saying no thank you over and over to the many many street vendors of sunglass/hats/bandana... Eventually we discovered we didn't even have to say no... just take their picture! Some went away immediately, but one dude loved it. He was our favorite.

From Pamplona

Since I was still reading The Sun Also Rises, it was pretty neat to be sitting in Hemingway's square, having coffee at Cafe Iruña and drinking from wine skins.

Sitting in the grass just outside Cafe Iruña. Pamplona

From Pamplona

I have been to New Orleans once. And I've been in New York on New Year's Eve. I can't say that I've been to many other big festivals or parties, but I am pretty positive that San Fermín rates in the top five as one of the wildest. I've never seen anything like it. In addition to the mayhem that ensued immediately with the festival kick-off, the party did not stop. From our apartment balcony, we could watch the street bands from above- marching bands that came through trumpeting and drumming almost on the hour, and all through the night... intent on keeping people up. And at 6AM, intent on waking up anyone who managed to doze off- for the running.

We managed to get a little sleep, especially right after the bulls had run, because aside from the street sweepers, most everyone else, exhausted from being up all night, had finally gone home for some sleep, before everything would start back up again, around lunchtime.

The morning the guys got up to run I went with our friend Catherine to watch, and to be awake in case someone ended up in an ambulance. Of course, I had no idea where on the track they might be, and Mike should be the one to blog about the actual running. From my vantage point, it was hard to see much, even standing on a table. You can just barely see the bulls... look up and to the right of the guy's video camera.

The view was for a second, the audio much better- first, the cannon, and then a minute later, the clatter of bull hooves on the cobbled streets mixed with the scuffling and scrambling of a hundred people all running at once... Pamplona

On the third day, we went to the bull fight. These were the bulls that Mike, Andy and Alistair had run with that morning, so I think it made it a little more interesting for them.

Our seats in the sombra were still plenty close enough to see the gore. Pamplona

I didn't realize they killed six each day of the festival. That's like 42 bulls just in Pamplona. There are three matadors, and each matador kills two each night. But it's not just the matador. Before he even comes out, the mounted horsemen and spear jabbing acrobats have already been at it, wearing the bull out, ruining his neck muscles and weakening him with blood loss. It is pretty brutal to watch, and I don't care if Spain does defend it by calling it an art form, or a sport, or tradition. It is truly a cruel thing no matter how you paint it.

What we found is that bulls are really, really, really stupid. Sure, they are big and aggressive, but here are animals that have grown up like animal kings their whole lives, and suddenly are plucked from their fields, deposited and isolated in a big ring, and then forced to defend themselves against fast little men with spears and lances. The men have barricades to hide behind, so sometimes the bull goes for the horses. They are the only target that can't run away. We watched a horse get lifted off his feet on the bull's horns and literally thrown to the ground. It took four men to even get the thing standing again. The horses wore some sort of armor and blinders, so they don't even know they're about to be gored by a bloody pissed off bull.

Once the bull has first been speared in the neck by the horseman, he then is subjected to the acrobat guys. These are three dude with little lances that come bounding like evil monkeys at the bull, and shove two lances each into the neck. The lances are designed to stick in the bull, so if all three do their job right, he ends up looking like this when El Matador comes out.

Check out all the gore. The matador hasn't even drawn his sword yet. Pamplona

Needless to say, the bull is in pretty bad shape by this time. He is already tired, sides heaving, bleeding all over himself. The matador comes out in his pink and lace and waves a little red flag in front of the bull. And the bull, this poor, stupid, frightened animal, just charges for that flag, over and over again. The matador sidesteps him each time, neat as a pin, and the bull just never catches on that if he just shifts his charge for the man, not the flag, he could nail the guy. Of course, killing the matador is still no good for the bull. He has to die either way. So, the matador toys with the bull, waving his little flag and tossing his head in a show of something only the Spanish would understand. His big moment comes when he is tired of toying, so he draws his sword and tries to make a single clean jab into the neck, behind the head, where all those biting little lances are clinging already. Sometimes, he has to jab two or three times, and then he is not so great a matador. One guy managed to puncture a lung, and it was a literal blood fount from the animal's mouth and nose. So much blood.

Once the sword was in though, if done right, it pierces the heart. The bull stops moving, and just stands there. Then, his knees buckle and he goes down, like he is about to take a nap, no big thing. But really, it is over for him. The matador struts around, deed done, while the finisher comes out with the stab-you-in-the brain thing they use to kill our burger cows... he stabs through the bull's skull, into the brain, and he finally is allowed to die. He is then hitched up to the horses and drug out of the ring, leaving behind a trail of blood and a sad reminder of what he was just moments before.

From Pamplona

I am glad we went. I'm glad I got to see firsthand what it's all about, and the Running of the Bulls would not be a complete experience without seeing the bullfight. I'll just never see the beauty in it. It's a rinse and repeat, the only excitement being that maybe just once, the matador will get it. The bull Cappuchino, who killed that poor kid the day after we left, didn't even know what was going on, I'm quite sure. The bull stumbled and fell at the beginning of the run, and was separated and lost from the herd. He had no idea where to go, or which way to run, so instead he did what any frightened animal would do. I saw the bull fight two days later on the television. They kept zooming in on the bull's horns, showing the kid's blood, and the matador had this look on his face like the bull was an evil enemy, and was about to have justice served to him. Ridiculous.

Here we are, at the fight... just before it all began. We're rooting for the bulls.

From Pamplona

From Pamplona