Yep I did it, I ran with the bulls....the fireworks bull

The time finally arrived to experience one of the most amazing, well known festivals of the world, San Fermin or Running with the Bulls as us Aussies call it.  After spending a few quiet nights in Pamplona prior to the event with an extremely sick travel buddy we joined the BusABout crew for our 5 day camping adventure.  The camping ground is situated about 25mins out of Pamplona and is quite literally in the middle of a paddock, you would never know it when sitting by the massive pool with poolside bar and hundreds to thousands of people staying here, there are 400+ in our group alone.
After our last tour experience I was getting very excited to have some catered food again as we were getting breakfast every morning and a welcoming three course dinner the night of arrival.  After finally checking in and setting up, dinner time was already upon us.  I regret to inform you that the sheer disappointment in what was served does not do the meal justice.  There was an option of soup, calamari or spaghetti as an entree, followed by chicken nuggets, chicken wings or meatballs all served with chips as the main.  Desert was fruit which was indeed just that, an orange or an apple.  To paint a picture for you, as I was too disappointed to take one, here is a description of a few of the options.  The spaghetti was out of a tin, barely warmed up, the nuggets were cold and crusty (there was 6 served) and I think I have had better from kfc or maccas.   After a few drinks to meet some of the people, it was a fairly early night for us in our cute little tents!

The next morning we were up for a late breakfast.  Sadly it was eggs which I decided to try eating as it had chorizo mixed in and I covered my bun with tomato sauce.  My travel buddy informed me that the look on my face was priceless, she even burst out laughing at one stage, as i was trying to force it down.  That was the last morning I had eggs and I stuck to sauce rolls on the days that there was no bacon.  It was time to have a day trip into San Sebastian to gather some of the gear that we would be wearing for opening ceremony.  On the way I learnt a few things that I was oblivious to about Spain.  Spain has a multiple regions that are Basque districts where the locals do not speak Spanish but they speak Basque.  Pamplona, San Sebastian and Barcelona are all in these regions.  The Basque people are very proud and make it very clear they are not Spanish.  The conflict between the two has been ongoing for years and there are still attempts today to try and separate from the Spanish people.  This meant a whole new language to learn just as I had figured out some words in Spanish! San Sebastian however is the home to some of the greatest food of all time.  It is famous for its pintxos, the Basque version of tapas.  Pintxos means spike in the traditional language so all the food served is with a toothpick or spike of some kind.  The food is in the bar and you simply choose what it is you want to eat and then pay for the number of toothpicks you have at the end.  It is a very honest culture and is amazing to see bars lined with all sorts of food and people just going up and eating something as they walk past with a drink.  After collecting all our red and whites for opening ceremony we headed on a pintxos crawl to some great bars where I tried a number of foods before heading back to camp to get some sleep for opening ceremony of San Fermin. 

Opening ceremony officially kicks off at 12 noon by the mayor of Pamplona, however we arrived in town around 9am to check out the running track where the bulls will have their first run the following morning.  There are many traditions for this event including the attire you wear (all white with a red scarf around your neck and waist) and once the party starts at 12 noon, the locals stay up partying all night until 8am the next day for the first run.  They will then go home for a siesta until about 6pm when they again party hard through the night until 8am the next morning for the run.  We were warned before going into town not to take any valuables as the tradition is celebrated by sangria and champagne being thrown into the crowd, meaning you are covered in sticky, smelly clothes for hours on end.  Our food this day consisted of whatever we could find, meaning pizza for lunch, which ended up in the bin and a burger with some chips for dinner.  We spent a lot of the day in town celebrating but unlike the locals, these Aussies needed some sleep before the first run.

An early rise at 5am to head for the first run of the event.  I was so excited to see my first run and we decided that we would watch from the arena on day one as this was apparently the best place to see all the action and the actual run itself is broadcast live on the big screens.  By the time we worked our way through the crowds we made it to the arena by 7am in time to get tickets and up into the stands.  We nervously listened to the band in preparation for the first of 3 cannons at 8am meaning the bulls have been released the second meaning that all bulls have left the holding area and the third that all bulls are through the arena and have completed the run.  There are 6 bulls that run and 6 oxen with cow bells to help keep them in a pack, we were lucky enough to have a clean run meaning that no bulls split from the pack.  Once the bulls are all through successfully they release 6 baby bulls with their horns taped up, one at a time, into the arena.  When I saw ‘baby’ this is what the locals call them, personally I thought they were huge, you can judge for yourself.  These provide a bit of action and there were some good hits taken by both locals and tourists.  It is apparently rare that anyone gets injured by these bulls. 

Once the commotion had calmed down we headed back to the campsite for our brunch and siesta.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon to spend in the sun reading and napping.  We then took the opportunity to head back into town to have some dinner before checking out the rest of the festivities that would keep the crowd going until 8am for the next run.  We firstly discovered the food markets that were set up in one of the gardens.  They had massive pans full of paella, one that was cooked and another that was still simmering.  It was really cool to see how they cook it as as we were there, they added more stock and will continue to cook this batch for many hours to come.  I couldn’t resist giving this traditional dish another go in a market style location and did not disappoint.  Similar to the first one I tried in Seville, adding the lemon to the rice really makes the flavours come alive.  The only gripe I would have about this dish is that I did not get a prawn served with mine!  The next thing to try was a Spanish traditional desert and as every market should they provided endless options.  I was feeling very traditional tonight so I had some churros with chocolate dipping sauce.  These were unfortunately not as pleasing as I had hoped, very different to the Australian version of churros.  These were very dense compared to the doughnut like texture we have at home. 

Once we let this insane amount of food settle down, we headed back into the thick of the action to see the running of the firework bull.  Not knowing what to expect we perched ourselves up on a side rail to ensure we could see.  Before we knew it a huge structure came running through spurting fireworks that ran down the bull track.  It was a lot of fun running with it and I will be saying that I technically ran with a bull on the bull track at Pamplona!  Before heading back to the camping site we checked out the fireworks in the main park, a spectacular display.  The Spanish sure know how to put on a party.   Leaving the bus depo to head home was an event in itself.  The streets were swimming with white and red and the roads may well have been sidewalks as not a single person was getting out of the buses way.  Instead of a 25 minute trip, it took us well over an hour to get home.

An early rise at 4am (yep we managed to steal about 2 hours sleep) for day 2 of the runs, our final day with the BusABout crew.  We arrived in town before 5am to secure a spot on the railing outside of the arena.  Today we decided to watch from the street to get a feel of the atmosphere in the crowds.  The streets were still crawling with people partying from the night before and we had a fight on our hands to secure these spots for the next 3 hours.  We had a few locals offer us up to 300 Euros for our spot but there was no way we were giving that up after being there for so long.  8am finally approached, I was so tired that at some stages I thought I could fall asleep on that railing!  People climb anything and everything they can to get a view of the track such as rubbish bins, vehicles or traffic lights.  Another clean run today, but I was astonished by the amount of people that were running.  It seemed to be so much more than the previous day, however they do lock the arena once all the bulls are in so it’s possible that there were similar amounts but we did not get to see them.  You do get told that it is over in flash, but it’s hard to comprehend just how quick these bulls run.  On average it will take the bulls approx 3 minutes to complete the entire course, which would take us around 10 minutes to walk.  Once the crowd started to spread out, we one last time headed back to the camping site to check out before heading to San Sebastian.   It is going to be an early night for us as we are already struggling to keep our eyes open and the sun is still up!