The feast of San Fermin ended this Monday, most of you probably know this as the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. I went in 1999 with some friends and ran twice during a four day stay. The first day, we really didn't know what we were doing, the street was jam packed with Spaniards, we couldn't see anything in front of us or behind us and all we knew was that fireworks would signal that the bulls had been released. We hear the rockets, people start to run but we don't see bulls yet and clearly most of the locals aren't moving so we wait as well. We wait, people run by, we wait some more as more people run by grinning like fools. I turn and look down the street and now I can see a wave of people running up the street, picking up people as it moves and just behind it I can see the tips of horns bobbing back and forth. I turn to see if my friends want to run and I realize that they are gone so I take off. The course that you run through the streets is a just over a mile long and the bulls run it in just over 2 minutes. You read that right, the bulls run a two minute mile! I made it about 30 yards when I looked over my shoulder and realized that the bulls were right behind me. Just ahead of me I saw that I was coming up on 'hamburger wall/corner' a ninety degree bend in the coarse that usually causes some of the bulls to fall and if you get trapped on the wrong side of the bulls you get crushed into the wall by them. I decided to pull up and hope that they ran by me. As I did I saw bull stumble and basically slide by on the cobblestones. It felt like it was just inches away. Unbeknownst to me, a photographer caught my in the moment of glory so I was able to bring home a picture of me pinned up against the fence praying that the bulls ran by. That was day one, over in about 1 minute of running but day two was a much different story!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment