By Robert Carry
There are a lot of things I’ve always wanted to do. Getting chased through the streets of a Spanish town by a half-dozen panicked, salivating fighting bulls at eight in the morning has never been one of them. However, when a mate hits 30 and decides he wants to head away for a weekend, you are duty bound to accompany him, regardless of the destination.
Denis isn’t the thrill-seeking type but had somehow convinced himself that the infamous San Fermin Festival – an eight-day piss up which kicks off every morning at 8am when hundreds of foolhardy blokes run for their lives towards a bullfighting stadium under threat of impalement by a dozen furious, multi-ton lumps of beef charging behind – would be a great place to celebrate.
After putting off making a decision for as long as possible, I psyched myself up and decided I’d do it.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Go to Pamplona?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll do the whole running with the bulls thing,” I said.
“What? I’m not doing that. I just want to go and watch!” he said.
This wasn’t good news. I had mentally prepared myself for the full deal. Going along to watch other people do the coolest bit wouldn’t cut it. No way.
“No way,” I said.
“No way what?” he said.
“No way we’re going over there and not running. The only way I’m coming along is if we do the run,” I said.
“Eh, yeah OK so,” he said.
A month later we were barricaded into a narrow street with a crowd of nervous, soon-to-be bull runners, waiting for a dozen giant, frenzied, pointy-horned testosterone bombs to charge through us.
Apparently, nearly one million people roll into town for the festival over the course of its eight days, but there couldn’t have been more than a few hundred standing in the line of fire. This was supposed to be the highlight of San Fermin, I thought. Where was everybody?
Gored
Then it occured to me. For the multitude of Basques and Spaniards safely tucked behind the barriers and staring down from the balconies above, watching tourists being gored half to death is the nearest thing to Roman-style coliseum action it’s possible to get in this day and age. Only a few hundred take part in the run, but the route, not to mention the stadium the bulls eventually run into, would turn out to be packed with tens of thousands of smiling onlookers.
The festival kicked off four days before we arrived, and I was kept up-to-the-minute with reports of injuries by concerned family and amused friends.
“An eighteen-year-old got his back broken by one of those bulls this morning,” I was informed.
“Four people were injured today and one of them is in a bad way,” I was told.
“You know an American lad was killed at that a year or two ago? And another fella got a bull horn up the a*se!” I was reminded.
In the moments before the go-bell, I couldn’t help but look around and wonder who among us had their cards marked. Like the rest of the victims, we were dressed in the traditional white garb with red sash and neckerchief.
“I suppose we should get a last picture,” said Denis at two minutes to eight, before handing the camera to an Asian 30-something who was shaking far too violently to take a decent snap.
No sooner had the camera clicked than a cop ducked under the barricade and grabbed us. No cameras aloud. We had to leave.
John F. Kennedy used to carry a quote around on a slip of paper in his wallet. It read: “Bullfight critics ranked in rows, crowd the enormous plaza full. But only one is there who knows, and he’s the man who fights the bull.”
We dived under the barrier, just in time for a couple to whizz past. We sprinted with the rest, with no idea if all the bulls were ahead of us or not.
The last minute interception could well have saved us from death or injury but being on the outside looking in wasn’t worth a shite. We had to find another way in.
The bell sounded for the start of the L-shaped run and we tore off in a diagonal in an attempt to head off the bulls and runners. The ground rumbled with the noise of the beasts hammering the ancient cobbles as the crowd roared in fear and excitement.
We turned a corner and the course suddenly came into view – we had a chance of catching it. The bulls thundered through as we dived under the barrier, just in time for a couple to whizz past. We put the head down and sprinted with the rest of the runners for the remainder of the run, with no idea if all the bulls were ahead of us or not.
We were like a school of fish. Every time someone looked back over their shoulder to see if there were more bulls steaming up behind us, the running mob would have to throw their head back to make sure there was nothing behind.
The surging runners carried us uphill and into the Plaza del Torro – where the bulls, after every bit of entertainment had been wrung out of them, would be put to the sword.
We had heard that a key part of the festival involves runners standing on the sand in the middle of the Plaza, a circular 20,000-seater stadium build in the 1920s, while bulls are let in one at a time. There were a few hundred people, mostly skittish guys in their 20s and 30s, standing in the middle of the Plaza looking at a big door. We steamed towards the packed out stadium, shimmied past a uninterested cop and jumped the barrier onto the sand.
It’s a strange feeling being the subject of interest in the middle of a 20,000-seater stadium, but it was something many appeared to relish. Some had whipped off their jackets and held them out like a matador with a cape. It was like being in Gladiator – some were wetting their pants while others couldn’t wait to get stuck in.
Suddenly, a horn blasted, the crowd roared, the huge doors flung open and a bull leapt into the stadium. It ignored everyone in the pit except for one poor individual who was standing near the far side enjoying the ambiance. He noticed it when it was seconds away and attempted to turn and run for the barrier.
He was far too late and in his panic, he lost his footing. The monster slammed into his side, sending him tumbling across the sand with his face frozen in terror.
The bull dipped his head and started ploughing into its stricken victim but bizarrely, rather than triggering the crowd to head for the stands, we couldn’t help but want to rush to his aid. One of the boys was taking a hammering – so we wanted to jump in and help.
Swiping
The crowd rushed towards the bull, swiping at it with rolled up newspapers and swinging kicks that had little chance of registering. Up close, I noticed that the bull was somewhat smaller than the ones that had torn through the streets and it had little caps on its horns to help stave off serious impalement. He was not to be trifled with, however, and tossed that fully grown man around like a rag doll.
The crowd roared along with every clatter as the need to extricate the fallen from his situation became ever more desperate. Finally, the Russell Crowe among us, stepped in. A muscle-bound, bearded, 20-stoner of a man burst forward and grabbed the bull by the tail with his two hands.
He attempted to swing the bull to one side, but looking at the weight difference it seemed an implausible task. However, the bull veered around towards him and in doing so added momentum to the swing.
Russell released his grip and the bull skidded away from his downed prey – to the delight of the crowd. The disorientated bull tore off after a fresh victim while Russell, with chest and jaw jutting out, pulled the faller to his feet. It was the most heroic thing I have ever witnessed. Every girl in the stadium wanted his babies.
Beast
When the bull finally tired, a tame steer was led onto the sand. The bull instinctively followed it back through the doorway and minutes later a fresh beast fired into the stadium. And so it went for a dozen bulls.
At one point, my view of exactly where the bull stood was obscured by the people around it. Suddenly, the crowd scattered like a flock of starlings and dread of dreads, the bull was running right at me. I turned and sprinted towards the barrier with the thud of his hooves closing in.
There were people leaning over the barrier but there was no way they were going to bar my exit. I vaulted over head-first, and landed upside-down in a jumble of unimpressed spectators just as the brute slammed into the cordon.
By the time all was said and done, a good quarter of the people on the sand had picked up a smack of some sort but myself and Denis got to walk breathless from the stadium at full time unscathed, with the walking wounded all around us. The bulls left behind, however, would face the matadors that evening – and none would survive the day.
