Going to Pamplona
Something in the American psyche dictates colorful scarves and the potential for grievous bodily harm are excellent reasons to spend a lot of money and go to Pamplona.
I was in Europe this summer, mainly studying folklore in the south of England. One weekend, a few friends and I decided to pack up and (randomly) go to Barcelona. It’s a neat city, full of really rude people who don’t actually speak Spanish (which I can understand) but rather speak Catalan (which I can’t). There were no prior plans to drive five hours inland to Pamplona for the last day of San Fermín, the patron saint festival known worldwide for the fact that about once every ten years someone dies. Plans were rather made about eighteen hours in advance, sitting in the common room of a really shady hostel at four in the morning.
So we got to the Barcelona airport, rented a car and drove to Pamplona. Simple as that. Call it impulsive, call it total insanity, call it what you will – it seemed like a good idea at the time! I still think it was.
Arriving in the capital of Navarre at about 4 a.m. the next day, the first thing that struck me was the sheer number of people. It was like Clemson on USC game day only everyone was more drunk and the color scheme was red and white, not orange. The streets were packed, with every bar in the city opening onto the street and likewise, jammed with revelers. It’s the first time I’ve seen someone use a snow shovel to clear heaps of detritus off a barroom floor. They swept it straight onto the street. Ridiculous.
El encierro (literally “the closing in”) – also known as the bull run – started at exactly 8:15 a.m. While waiting out the wee hours of the morning our group made friends with some Germans who were walking up and down the narrow, cobbled streets chanting “San Fermín! San Fermín!” and swigging wine straight out of bottles. They told us they came to Pamplona for “the truthful experience,” which I think means they regarded the festival as authentic. We bought the tourist outfits based on the real ones, partly to blend in and partly because we didn’t want to get our real clothes covered in mud (it was raining.) We chanted, we sang, we didn’t know the words. Brass bands were playing at 6 a.m. and everyone seemed content. In short, it was awesome.
We were in position to run in plenty of time, and as the bullhorns called out instructions in exactly seven languages I was certain we’d be crushed by the sheer number of people in the narrow, narrow streets. The bulls aren’t the danger here, oh no. And once 8:15 hit and for two minutes afterwards, the worry was being trampled by 14,000 people all trying to get out of the bulls’ way at once. Thankfully we made it out unscathed, but there were some close calls. All’s well that ends well.
At the end of the day I think the running of the bulls at San Fermín is one of the last authentic cultural events left in Spain. Its roots are in Roman gladiator competitions and ever since it’s been passed down. People may take things to a new extreme, get drunk for weeks on end and risk their lives to carry on the tradition but that’s not what matters. What matters is that the tradition still exists and still matters. And no one can beat my story at parties. “What did you do this summer?” “Oh, I hung out on my boat, went to the beach. What did you do?” “I went to Spain and ran with the bulls! Beat that!”
