The Pamplona Diaries: Day Five---Move 'Em Out, Rawhide!

From Pamplona

All this time in Pamplona, I had been waffling on whether or not I would participate in the "Running of the Bulls." At first, I wasn´t going to do it, because there´s no way you can possibly outrun a bull. Even a fast runner like me knows that. But after being in Pamplona for a few days and seeing how this "Running of the Bulls" actually works, I realized that it wasn´t about how fast you could actually run. It was about where you positioned yourself on the street, and how close you wanted to get to the bulls to "prove" your manhood. And the real danger wasn´t the bulls charging down the streets...it was the big mass of people that were running along. If someone tripped in front of you, it could cause a major pileup of people and create a mob condition where people could get hurt and die.

So I went back and forth on whether or not to include myself in the actual running. The way I saw it, it was like playing Russian Roulette, where chances were that you wouldn´t get hurt if you played your cards right. But there is always that remote chance that you get the bullet in the chamber and get screwed up by either a bull or a pack of humans. If you positioned yourself so close to the barricades and didn´t actually RUN next to the bulls and touch them like a lot of the loonies do, there was a high chance that nothing at all would happen to you, and you could still claim you did it and put it to sleep for good.

If there was going to be a day of me doing the run, it would have been Thursday. I was going to play it by ear and see how I felt. And if it felt right, then I´d do it. However, after getting into camp so late, and not wanting to get out of my sleeping bag at 6:00, I decided to nix my plans of ever running with the bulls. This was my one shot, and I decided against it.

After sleeping in for awhile, we finally packed up our stuff, left Camping Ezcaba and then headed off into Pamplona to catch the next bus to San Sebastian. While standing around, waiting for a bus to arrive, I overheard conversation from a guy who had run with the bulls that morning. He was describing to some fellow travelers the pain and horror of what had ensued in the streets. This seemed rather odd to me. In the previous days, nothing bad had really happened. What had happened this morning that I had missed?

So once we got to San Sebastian, I checked online and watched the "Running of the Bulls" that I had decided to bow out of (you can see it at www.sanfermin.com). Let me just say this: I picked the right day to give up running with the bulls. What I saw in that video was sheer horror as one bull went chaotic and started nailing people left and right. Chances are, I probably would have made it out unscathed, but after watching that video, I´m glad I didn´t take any chances. I did my "Running of the Bulls" with a stuffed cow charging after me down a bus aisle. And that´s good enough for me.