Wow this past weekend has definitely been one to remember! On Friday evening, six of us went the crrrrazy festival, los Sanfermines, in Pamplona. The most popular activity in the festival is el encierro, or the running of the bulls. Its usually attempted by los borrachos (drunks) who have "drunk muscles" at 8am. We arrived in two different shifts; Dejan, Igor and I arrived at about 2am after around 5 hours on a bus (or at a bus station), while Susannah, Oliver and Anna (the Polish crowd) left later and arrived at 3:30am. I expected there to be plenty of people still up from a night of partying, and we planned on joining them until the encierro at 8am (finding a hostel at the last minute in Pamplona is nearly impossible and would cost us allll of our arms and legs). However---I was not nearly expecting what we found. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were partying at full force throughout the night. We took a wrong turn into the streets where all the most happening clubs were located, and I never thought we would get out. Literally we just pushed ourselves (and other people) through the crowd. The streets and parks were full of trash; the Spanish are always well prepared to drink--most of them brought coolers with ice, wine and coke (for the kalimotxos) and left the trash right where they were (I imagine if this were Germany the bums would be loving all the free cash on the ground!). The worst about the whole thing was that the streets reeked of urine. All the streets were wet, and I preferred to imagine it was beer or kalimotxo, but as we walked down la Calle Estafeta (where we wanted to post up to watch the encierro) I could no longer ignore the obvious---within three blocks, there were at least 5 men peeing on the streets. And even though the streets were almost completely clean by 2pm that day (swept and watered down), there was still the distinct and overwhelming stench of hot piss. Quite disturbing.
We took our places sitting on a fence on la Calle Estafeta at about 6:30am, which is when most sources said you have to get there in order to even see the encierro. The streets became soo unbelievably crowded again (I was glad to be perched safely above it), then the street was cleaned and people were pushed out of the streets into the alleys. Unfortunately, even though we were right behind the fence which by now had been closed, we still didn't have a good view. There are three main areas to see the encierro--at the beginning where they run from one street into la Calle de Estafeta (dangerous because if the bulls are running fast, they can run into the sides), la Calle de Estafeta (not along the whole street, but only at intersections with other streets---this is where we were) and then where Estafeta runs into the la plaza de torros (the bullring, where the bullfights take place at 6m every evening of the festival--dangerous because of the slope or the path). We chose the safest place along Estafeta, but there were two fences between us and the street where police and emergency personnel stood. Needless to say, we didn't have a good view. I'd have to say that the encierro itself was pretty boring--I assume only maybe 2 out out of the 8 encierros during the festival every year get exciting (with angry bulls or rreally drunk runners). Witnessing the festivities was much more entertaining than the four minutes of watching people jog with some bulls. Either way, it was a blast, and I'm sooo glad to have visited one of the best parties in the world (probably of the same caliber as Mardi Gras or Carnival in Rio de Janerio---its all about letting loose and getting crazy). And it was well worth the trip.
