Running with the Bulls

And now for the day the boys had been waiting for FOR-EV-ER!!

Yes, it's the day that threatened to make Cassie and I widows. It's the day our husbands might be getting gored by bulls...

Officially, Day 1 of the 'Running of the Bulls' in Pamplona.

We were up bright and early to catch the very first bus in to the centre of town, which the reception at our hotel very rudely tried to tell us was not possible because the buses were cancelled. Not true at all. Glad we didn't believe them. I'd insert a rude word for them in here, but I'll refrain.

We made it in via bus with no troubles, and emerged from the underground bus station to this sight.

Yes, we must be very old and boring, because that did not look like fun. The smell wasn't much fun either, as we made our way into town.

The boys left us to meet their impending (hopefully not) deaths, while Cassie and I made our way toward the stadium, the end point of the track, to see if we could find ourselves a good position from which to watch the carnage.

This is a mosaic on the side of the stadium.

We managed to slot ourselves into this very small gap, and counted ourselves lucky. We were obviously not the only ones keen on watching the action.

If I looked up I got to see this.

So I tried to avoid looking up. Instead, I got to watch this very fierce policeman for an hour.

And the paramedics on stand-by running through their drills. Always reassuring.

And then it started.

And it was kind of boring!

The runners we could see were just kind of jogging along in a crowd. The few bulls we caught sight of were simply trotting along pleasantly amongst them. It really didn't seem all that ferocious and frightening. So much for fearing losing our husbands (and not even being able to claim on life insurance because they were running with the bulls)!

The most exciting thing that happened from our point of view was watching people climb through the fence and having the police beat them with sticks if they tried to then get back in! Those police were not to be argued with!

We were then very surprised to be joined by Tom and Dave on our side of the fence, when they were  supposed to be running for their lives on the other side!

As it turns out, those police are definitely fierce. They blocked off two thirds of the track (the two thirds in which the boys had carefully positioned themselves), formed a human barricade, and simply marched the hopeful runners straight out, beating them with batons as they went and yelling in Spanish. Tom and Dave tried desperately to get back towards the open end of the track, but fighting against crowds of people and not-to-be-reckoned with police was harder than running with the bulls would have been.

So anticlimax of anticlimax, the boys didn't get to run with the bulls at all!

It was a small consolation for them that at least the bulls didn't seem all that scary, so they weren't missing too much of a challenge.

We weren't particularly keen on a repeat performance of the previous day's Sangria-drenched adventures, so we started making our way back towards the bus stop, and stopped in a cafe along the way to get some breakfast. There, we had the pleasure of watching replays of the most exciting parts of the track (clearly the parts we hadn't seen live) on TV, where there were a few fairly angry-looking bulls, and a few injuries. Just what the boys had been looking forward to! Kind of.

See those poor disappointed smiling bravely faces?

We made it back to the bus stop, and were careful not to tread on these sleeping beauties.

Or these, on the freshly cleaned up patch of grass that we'd seen earlier.

That looks like it hurts.

We made our way back on the bus with no dramas, and prepared for our departure from Pamplona a little crestfallen, but grateful (at least on us girls' part) to be leaving unscathed.

Tom decided to take a few photos of the tourist brochure, since we certainly weren't in the best spot to take any exciting photos.

This is the midday neck scarf waving at the opening ceremony from above. Spectacular, huh?

I'm glad I wasn't this girl!

And that Tom wasn't either of these guys!

Or this guy! OUCH!

So, we moved on from the chaos in Pamplona very peacefully, said goodbye to the devious little receptionists at our hotel, and enjoyed the rough beauty of the countryside once again, with our boys fully intact.