Encierro 

16/07/16While I am in Barcelona, I finally have time to reflect in the running of the Bulls. Actually known as el encierro. Why?…

The reason is to get the Bulls from the river to the Plaza Del Toros. Why?… To kill them for the glory. 

I guess it does make sense. The heard only needs one bull. Maybe a couple more Bulls In Training. If we are to kill them, let us give them one last fighting chance to take out some of the people that are going to eat us. So as a vegetarian encierrando, of course I had a couple of slogans to scrawl across my t-shirt, “Run with the Bulls” or “Run for the Bulls”. 

So we had been pretty much been planning on doing this every since we had decided to attend La Fiestas de San Fermin. We researched, we watched, we read, I watched some more. The next question is how? We imagined that you just show up and run. Well, pretty much, but the details include a plane or two or a few, same with the train and not as many buses as I had expected, but there were several buses. And of course the ever faithful taxi… Of course it includes lodging, an Airbnb 20-30 kilometers out of town too. Oh yeah, the San Fermin festival isn’t not just a festival it is a true fiesta! 10 days, wear red and white and forget about your job. Unless you are trying to make some quick bucks and speak Spanish or Basque fluently. Soy is party is so big. The town normally hosts 250,000 people. During San Fermin, the town swells five times to over a million people. By the way, most locals who are smart and can afford it leave on holiday and enjoy it for one or two nights. 

How to survive, well, the Englishmen that we kept bumping into used a variety of methods to stay awake including acceptance. It is interesting how some people are seen more than once, even at a mall or something. We just slept late, woke up caught the bus bought beer and ice and put it in the mochillo. We then floated around from tapas bar ordering wine and when we would remember, we would drink a beer. We would show up at a club, dance a few steps and. Valé. Hasta luego.  

A cigarette just fell from heaven, already lit
A sign is a sign…
… Back to the past…

So I bring all of this up to say it is not easy to get to run with the Bulls. We had horrible times leaving The fiesta to get to Ororbia. The night before our planned run was our complicated by our attempt to catch the 2345 bus back to Ororbia which we missed, or thought we missed and would up paying a taxi 20€. By the time it was all said and done, it was 2am and we were both pretty tipsy. Considering that in order to run it involves catching the 0645 bus to Pamplona in order to catch the firing of the cannon at 0730, signifying the start of the run; we did not make it.

 The next day was well planned, despite that now I am revisiting this, I really don’t remember which day is which?!? Again it is way more complicated than expected…

So. Back to the details. Somehow we caught the bus. Went to bed at a decent hour, I contemplated life. I am currently reading The Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying, so I waiver from excitement to depressed… Read with caution! I got up, mama brown was having issues. She slept with her contacts. We got way more drunk the night before than we expected. The bus, this early should be on time. Our host, Alicia, was like, aprisa! aprisa! El bus vienen. So. Ran out the door. I am running with the Bulls. I am outside, 0639 hrs. I give the peacock call. Mama brown looks out kind of disturbed. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” I bolt. See ya when I see ya! I run my 600 meters to the stop. I see people. Whew! The bus hasn’t left yet. I then reflect some more, take an ital breakfast. Mama brown shows up. What a relief! “Phfff, the bus doesn’t even come til 0715″she says! (Little did I know, she didn’t have her contacts and she went back to get them. She misread the schedule, the bus leaves Pamplona at 0715!). Me, I’m staying. I’m catching this bus and I’m running. Today. I watched my muse walk away…

Then the bus came! Mama brown did not catch it…
So as a budded Buddhist, I’m reflecting. I guess she will be thinking about me more when she is not with me than if she was. 
On the bus I meet Enoah, our housemate that our host has been deferent to. We frantically try to send our host a message to give to mamabrown. Spell check spanish to English is awful. After seeing Enoah’s message translated from Spanish to English, who knows what kind of messages I have been sending Mestre and our friends along the way? 
Either way, mamabrown and I had a plan we had discussed the previous day after our first Spanish churros. 
So Enoah shows me where to try to get in… No puedo.

I run around to another place…no puedo entrar. I hear a dude say todos que quieren correr corre. So I followed a. Purple of young bucks as they ran another 500 meters. Valé, we found it. I was in. I gave my thinks, I said some prayers and I thought about my family, friends, and loved ones. I had also written the number of our host on my arm in case of catastrophe. I burned some sage and started walking somewhere else, did some stretching and came to a traffic jam. That is where I met my Western Sahara Amigo. Another doppelgänger. He bummed a cigarette from someone, he shared it withe me and he shared some insight I only the run having been in several others in the past. He said ” salta quando necessites salta. Si necessites luchar, lucha!” Vale.
We heard the rockets and we started walking to the White Stripes chant (thanks Gotinha!) “lo lo lo lo looo lo” as we turned “La Curva” aka dead man’s curve. What a relief. I was across from Zanpa, the bar we had danced at the night before! Hasta Luego amigo….
The tension is thick, the hair on my neck is up. I look around at my fellow runners as we pick up the pace. I thought man, at this rate I’m gonna beat the Bulls. So o found a spot where the road widened t about 15 feet. Ironically, we had trained a couple of times with the boys before we left. We took off down the road while they followed us on there bikes like Bulls! I outran the boys, so I didn’t want to make that mistake again… 

So I waited…and waited… Three or four days passed as I watched people run by. My western Saharan amigo did say that 90 % of the people will be gone by the time the Bulls come. Then I felt it, like a track relay. Go! 

I took off at half, three quarter speed. There was a corner ahead and it caused a compression, I was like, bad bad timing. At this rate. I am elbow to elbow with fools. I am not gonna fall. You are definitely not gonna make me fall amigo. And I look back. Sure as shit, it is a fuckin bull on the other side of the street. I am stiff arming fools and the Bulls are running along side me about 3 meters away. I am thinking if I don’t go now, I’ll never touch a bull and I won’t be on video! So I kick into high gear as the bull stumbles! So I let up a it and then I’m like now or never and I reach out with my left hand and I nick the bull with my left middle finger as I I have flash back of a similar situation in which I tried to grab a work truck while riding my bike in order to get a tow only to realize the truck was decelerating as I hit the asphalt hard. Enough is enough, and so we all ran into the stadium where I attempted a round off back flip upon entry and almost didn’t make it. My right knee touched the ground. 

So I looked for my western sAhara friend in the arena, I did not find him. Then all the sudden the rest of the Bulls came in. That was scary. Things seemed to calm down in the arena and I was feeling good. I kept waiting for the announcement “thank you for your participation please exit the arena now”. No, not only are we in Spain, but it did not happen. They let the young bull out. Now there is like a thousand fools running around a football size stadium playing tag with a bull. This might be a baby bull, but it had fools on their asses and didn’t quit there. So I picked up a newspaper and rolled it up for some kinda of protection, and it must have worked. Then I was like, I am staying as far from that bull as possible. And I did. I said to my self, stay for one bull. I ran around and I waited for the announcement, “the first bull can now leave while the second bull enters the arena.” Again, no that did not happen even in Spanish. But this time it was no baby bull, this was a full on Texas long horn. Drop the mic, I gotta muse to catch. So I figured out real fast why I have trained jumping fences all of my life. Bing Bing bong. I found a hat with Kapitan written on it. As I skipped o the meeting point. I hear the peacock call as soon as I find the meeting spot. Mama brown! Perfect timing.

We headed to the Cafe con Sal, where Enoah works. We had wine for breakfast with our cafes con leche. We then caught the bus back to Ororbia.

We gathered our belongings from the air bnb. Our host gifted us a ride into town right to our hostel.

Later that evening…

We managed to fit in the final Eurocup game. We were two of three people in Pamplona going for Portugal. Everybody loves to hate Ronaldo. After half time we managed a beautiful walk along the river. We finally found a bar playing the rest of the game. Portugal won sin Ronaldo! What a day!