The Pamplona Diaries: Day Three---The Battle of Bull Run

From Pamplona

Completely drained from the long, bizarre evening in "Park Lucky," we grabbed our packs and around 7:00 and headed over near the bull ring to get our spot to watch the running of the bulls. Our travel books had said to arrive no later that 6:45 to get a spot...and they were correct. Already, spectators were sitting atop the outer wooden barricades that lined the path of the bulls. Down below the outer barricades, people were already lined up to watch it it from ground level. Add to that the paramedic crew found inside the barricades, the photographers and television crews sitting on the inside barricades, and the Pamplona police wandering around inside the barricades with their red berets on, and you pretty much had just a peephole in which to watch the running of the bulls.

So Eric and I held our positions, despite the lack of a decent view. One of the guys standing in front of me didn´t look very well. He looked like death, and when he kept swallowing down whatever was inside of him, I decided that I better move my pack over to the left so I was out of the Gallagher splash zone.

At 8:00, the first firework went off, followed shortly by a second one, thus indicating that all the bulls were out running in the streets. Through all the big asses sitting on the barricade in front of me, I could make out people starting to walk a little faster...and a little faster...until suddenly they were all running in a state of shear panic like Godzilla was suddenly attacking their village. It was a sea of red and white running by, waving their rolled up newspapers around, screaming wildly. Then I saw a blur of black go by really fast, and more runners followed, and then they fired two more fireworks off, and it was over. Within less than two minutes, all the bulls were in their pens in the stadium, and all I had seen was a black smudge of it all. Eric and I decided to get there earlier the next day so we could grab a decent spot.

Feeling drained, we decided to head over to the campsite that we had originally planned for this trip: Camping Ezcaba. We jumped on a bus that we thought would go there, but the bus routes in Pamplona are confusing for the unaccustomed, so we had to jump off the bus in a small town and wait another hour for the correct bus to arrive. While waiting, I was so hungry that I downed the remainder of my Choky Chocs cereal that I had in my backpack. I love reading the names on the cereals here in Spain. They´re all pretty wacky.

The bus finally picked us up, and after jumping off at the correct stop, we had another 15 minute trek to get to the campground. Camping Ezcaba was pretty nice for a low-budget campground. It had a restaurant/bar, small grocery store, and swimming pool. And the vibe there was pretty good as well. Even though we were kilometers away from the craziness of Pamplona, San Fermin carried over into the campground as all the campers sat around drinking and listening to American pop music (Side note: almost everywhere I´ve gone in this country, I´ve heard the radio stations all playing these weird mixtures of American music. You´ll hear a lot of songs from the 80s, then they´ll throw in some oldies, then a current song on the charts. It has no rhyme or reason, but it´s all primarliy American music. Almost makes you feel like the 80s never ended). Eric and I were so tired, we threw up the tent, grabbed some showers and then passed out for 3 straight hours so we could function normally again.

Once we arrived in the land of the living again, we sat around eating hamburguesas, drinking beer and watching Le Tour de France on the flatscreen in the bar. It was paradise to us. After an hour of this, we got ourselves together and then jumped on the bus back into Pamplona to experience some more of the insanity.

After wandering around town some more, we headed over to the bull stadium to see if we could pick up some tickets for the next day´s fight. The line wasn´t too long, so we waited for about an hour and were able to pick up 2 tickets in andanada sol (in the sun section). The sun section is a little bit cheaper than the shaded section. But with the skies being overcast all week, getting sunstroke seemed like a remote possibility.

We hung out in town for a few more hours, witnessing more surprise parades and dancing going on throughout town. Over at Plaza de Santo Domingo, some of the older crowds were dancing to a band performing Spanish music. In the main plaza, Plaza del Castillo, about half of the spectators were involved in a long line dance involving red scarves draped between themselves while a guy played one of those snake-charming flutes. For a foreigner such as myself, it seemed really bizarre, but the Spanish just loved it. It made me jealous how all the Spanish had these great traditions in their culture, while a white American guy such as myself only had the Chicken Dance to fall back upon.

After getting our fill of surprise parades and bands, we finally jumped a bus for the campground and decided to call it a day. Besides, we needed to recoop our energy to be ready for our big day on Wednesday, where we´d witness the two big ones: the running of the bulls, and the bull fight. I couldn´t wait.