I just got back into Bilbao an hour ago, and I am still running on three hours of sleep and wearing yesterday´s clothes, but smiling at the experiences a day in Pamplona have granted me. Lots of good people and good fortune. The past 20 hours are beyond description, but as always, I will give it a go... (Please excuse the fatigue-induced spelling errors.)
I traversed Bilbao on foot yesterday mid-morning and caught the 1:00PM bus out of town for a round trip price of 21 euro. On the two-hour ride I met a cool Basque kid named Unai (he had as much trouble with my name as I did with his). He made me feel better about the prospect of having to sleep in a park if hostels were too full or too expensive. Everyone sleeps in parks during the festivities. Those who actually sleep, anyway.
As we arrived at the Pamplona bus station, the terminal happened to be filled with families and party goers following a procession of huge, twenty-foot tall statues of kings, queens and religious looking characters, which must have been made out of cardboard to have been carried and spun as they were by those poor blokes underneath. At the terminal I met a couple of cool gals, Lisa from Minneapolis and Katie from Wales. Both are well traveled, and we shared travel stories on the way through Pamplona´s historical quarter past the bullring. I ended up doing a lot of sightseeing and partying with Katie, who is as cool as they come. (And she rolls her own cigarettes.) In the hostal we also ran into three guys our age from Southern California who were there to run with the bulls the following morning.
From the bus terminal we hiked to Katie´s hostel, Hostel La Viña, where they actually had a vacancy for me, too!!! 25 euro for the night. Having that detail ironed out, I was ready to live it up. We saw Lisa off on her 5PM bus to Vitoria, and on a whim we ran to the bullring and, after approaching two or three scalpers (a far more subtle bunch than those at professional sports events in the U.S.), an older gentleman approached and we bought two tickets to that very night´s 6:30PM ¨corrida¨, or bullfight. He and his wife were planning to use the tickets, but she wasn´t feeling well so he had to unload the tickets. So, in a stroke of luck, we got seats six rows up from where the bulls enter the ring, for 25 euros each, instead of scalped nosebleeds going for 30 or more euros. If that weren´t enough, the guy´s daughter-in-law gave us the ham sandwiches she had made for their family, since evidently they all decided to spend the night at home instead of at the plaza de toros. What luck.
The fight was amazing. Six bulls and three matadors in about two hours. Each matador and his group of picadores and banderilleros gets two bulls. The lady who gave us her sandwiches told us it is customary to eat as the evening´s third bull enters the ring. So, for the first two bulls I enjoyed another nice Cuban cigar and drank the sangria the cool Basque gals next to us were passing along generously. One thing I noticed is that the bullring in Pamplona is smaller than its counterpart in Sevilla, by quite a bit. For my first fight, it was amazing to have such great seats in such an intimate arena. Intimate, too, in that everyone was sharing food and drink with strangers- another element missing from sporting events in the U.S. It helped that everyone wanted to show the two tourists a good time, too. Before we could even touch our sandwiches, Katie and I were being handed prawns, white asparagus, olives, bull-tail sandwich with peas and potatoes in it (a local treat, I guess), a fruit paste with manchegan cheese, and little pastries to be washed down with the sangria and Rioja wine handed to us by strangers.
The two ladies next to us, who were perhaps in their mid-thirties, were the absolute coolest people I have ever met. It got better as they got drunker, too. After teaching me a few Basque words, which I promptly forgot, one of them warned me sarcastically that everyone there, the Basques at least, were terrorists...and that I should watch out. The folks in Basque Country are fiercely proud, but not inherently violent. At least, I think that was her message. She had other messages, too. She handed Katie a condom. Then she grabbed my half-eaten proscuitto sandwich after the last bull was killed, and she flung it into the ring and people were heading out of the arena. She had been drinking a _lot_ of sangria.
After the fight, I ran back to the hostel and showered, then out for a beer and a walk among the throngs of partying teenagers, young adults, families with babies in strollers, and their toddlers. This was the case until almost 2AM; it was a safe atmosphere, and definitely a touristy one, and everyone wore white shirts with the customary red handkerchief around the neck and red sash on the waist. The real traditionalists wore the white cotton pants, as well. There were phenomenal fireworks at around 1AM that rival any July 4th finale in the States, and by 6AM the locals had their haphazard marching bands back on the streets to rouse those who managed to sleep.
I got up at 6AM and banged on Katie´s door so we could go get good ¨seats¨for this morning´s running of the bulls (the ¨encierro¨) which takes place at 8AM sharp. Empty space atop the wooden barriers that line the course is usually gone by 7AM, so we hustled our way onto a plank at ¨dead man´s corner¨. This is virtually a ninety-degree turn, the only on one on the course, and one where people tend to get hurt. For this reason, there were plenty of medical personnel (and photographers) in a VIP area between us and the bulls. Thus, I was far from danger. Check out these photos from this morning´s run...that poor guy on his back in the green shirt took a horn in the ribs just three meters in front of where I was sitting (had the photo been cropped five feet wider to the left, you´d see me frozen in time while mouthing the words ¨holy sh*t¨). He was one of seven injuries this morning.
After the running of the bulls, which lasts literally seven or eight minutes, all the partygoers run onto the floor of the bull arena, and the less brave fill the arena to capacity to watch as, one by one, tamer bulls are released into the arena (with the tips of their horns covered)...I would estimate there were 200-350 younger men in there, drunk and taunting the bulls (NOT of the toro ¨bravo¨ breed, and somewhat less aggressive), which would almost always get in a good shot on a few of the brazen lads. Everyone walked away from their injuries in the ring this morning, which is more than can be said for those who took horn or hoof in the encierro.
After recouping at the hostel and congratulating the California boys on their successful avoidance of death on the horns of Spain´s toros bravos, I packed up, grabbed coffee and churros, and met a young couple from Vancouver before catching the 1PM bus back to Bilbao. There is nothing like international travel to put one in touch with amazing people from all corners of the world...
So, there´s the quick version of Nate´s visit to the Fiestas of San Fermin. It is 5:09PM now. Time for beeeeeeeed.
