Expensive mistake

Part of the reason I´m taking this trip is to check off as many things as possible from my list of things to do and see. I´ve been trying to get to Spain for the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona for a few years now, so that was my primary reason for coming here.

Traveling in Europe doesn´t make much sense now for Americans because the dollar is so weak against the euro. So I knew the two weeks here would be by far the most expensive of the trip. We couldn´t find a place to stay in Pamplona. It´s a tiny town, and the only reason anyone goes there is for the festival of San Fermin and the encierro, or Running of the Bulls.

We found a bus trip that reeked of being a tourist trap. For starters, it´s a half-day bus trip for 100 euro, which is about a million dollars at the current exchange rate.

But I decided to take the chance when I was told we would be watching the running from a balcony on a section nicknamed Hamburger Wall. This is a particularly treacherous part of the run, because the route takes a sharp turn. The bulls, which weigh more than a half ton, tend to lose their footing and crash into the wall. Good stuff.

Except that we weren´t on the route, we were just off it, and yes, there´s a difference. This is what we saw.



You may have seen on television the huge pileup that occured at this corner. We didn´t. A bunch of bulls and people got tangled up (no one was hurt) just beyond the bottom left corner of the picture but we couldn´t see it because we weren´t actually on the route.

So, I can´t really say that I´ve been to San Fermin. It would be like saying that I took a bus from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, had a cup of coffee at Jackson Square, took a bus back to Baton Rouge and said I´d been to Mardi Gras. So the Running of the Bulls remains on my to-do list.

Because it´s quite a scene. We arrived around 6:30 a.m. and there were thousands of people wandering around, most of them snotslinging drunk. All the bars were packed and everyone -- everyone -- was wearing white clothes with red scarves. People drink all night, run or watch the run, then sleep all day. Because the town is so small, and because the crowd is so big, most people sleep on benches or in parks or right outside the bullring, like these folks curled up in their sleeping bags.




The streets and alleys are piled high with trash and broken bottles in the early morning, but by mid-day the city is completely swept and hosed down. It´s pretty impressive to see how quickly they clean the place up.

On the upside, when I do come back to Spain I´ll definitely come back to San Sebastian. Good lord, just look at this place!