After finally getting to the campsite from Villava, setting up the tent, and relaxing a little, I put a lock on the tent hoping no one would try to steal anything (There were tons of people at this campsite and people with tents in every space possible. I was at the front desk when someone wanted to report a stolen wallet. I guessed that this probably would not be nor was not the only occurence of theft.) and headed to Pamplona. Unfortunately the bus drivers were on strike that day so the schedule was irregular and since my bus only came only 2 hours, there was not much luck for me in getting a bus ride that day. Luckily a kind family gave me a ride to the city. My first stop was Sat evening mass, in which many people were of course dressed up in their white clothing with red handkerchief and sash. This uniform is the typical wear for people during the festival. My next stop was the supermarket and the fruit stand, below.
People in the park. This is not near the center, but the city is not that big. With over 1,000,000 people visiting, there was a bit of a problem with space.
Bands kept people going throughout the city at all hours of the evening.
And there were concerts throughout the evening, including the dianas which are concerts held at 6:30am for those waiting to see the running of the bulls, called encierros in Spanish.
This group above created the Macarena song. Below are some friends from Valencia and Catalan I met during the concert.
Trash was everywhere and you could not help but step on it. The first place to clean was the streets where the running of the bulls would be held. Security was very high, as you can see by the police in red.
These people are lining up to see the bulls running in the streets. If you did not rent a balcony, it was pretty hard to see because of limited space. Thus, I decided to go into the plaza or stadium to watch from there. There, the people and the bulls would finish running into the stadium. The bulls would run to the other side through another gate where the toros would stay until the evening.
I am pretty tired. It's 8:00am and I still have not gone to sleep.
Just before the bulls are released, the people chant asking for them to be released in front of the statue of San Fermín, who is the patron of this festival and diocese. Then exactly at 8:00, the bulls are released after the 2nd rocket is shot off. They run through the streets where the particpants try to avoid getting clobbered. The pictures below are of them making their way to the plaza.
Sometimes the toros don't want to go to the other side and need some encouragement so people with capes guide them. Once the toros are in their stalls under the stadium seats, novillos, or young bulls are let out (they also ran with the toros through the streets) and people that ran have the chance to provoke the novillo and get clobbered by something not as strong. At the bottom of this post are 2 videos of this event.
People, mostly men, will provoke the novillos by grabbing the horns or tail, hitting the novillo, calling it, etc.
Ouch, but I laughed.
The picture above and below are when everything is over. Little did I know, I would be among the crowd below in 24 hours.
Where the toros come out. I am not sure why there are shoes there. I like to think that that person got lifted right out of his shoes from a novillo.
This picture in no way does justice to where and how many people were sleeping in the city. Parks with grass were full. Cars inside were full. Plazas, benches, whatever were full. As I said, there was a problem with space. Any hostal or hotel was full.
Waiting for the bus, which did come, and wanting to go to sleep. As you can see, I did wear the typical clothing too of course.
I finally made it to my tent, but guess what? I needed to pack up and leave the camping ground at noon. It was 11:00am. I took a shower and headed to the closest safe place, below. Oh, this picture above no way represents the hoards of people that were camping at this campsite. Lots of people had already left since it was the end of the weekend and people wanted to get home for the World Cup game.
After resting for about 4 hours, I headed back to Pamplona once again. I left my stuff at the luggage place at the bus station, where I would have to be at 9am to leave on my bus. Now it might make sense why I did not stay at the campground for another night. Besides the lack of buses, if I was planning to stay up all night, it did not make sense to just leave my stuff at the campsite. I would not even have time for a shower, which esentially is what I was paying for... I did find out later though that there were public showers in the city. I wonder what those were like.
Sunday night was the night of the world cup final. In the largest plaza, a screen was put up and tons of people gathered. After Spain won, you can imagine how crazy the crowd was. At the bottom of the post is a short clip.
Navarra is the autonomous community where Pamplona is located.
There were also amusement rides, which I never even went to. I took this picture from a beautiful lookout from the old part of the city.
Just one of the many places that opened its doors all night long for people partying. Of course the streets were full too since the music was blaring. Hanging are the cured pork legs.
After seeing the encierro (the running of the bulls) and talking with people from there and deciding that I could make it to the bus on time, I decided that I was going to run too (even though I was almost sure upon arriving that I was not going to), but in the safest manner I could. This would me running ahead of the bulls and ahead of most of the crowd with people that push and hit and claw others. I passed this monument on my way to where I would sleep for an hour and a half, below. It was the storage place for the buses at the bus station. I figured it was better than the park because there were a couple of policemen and of course other people.
My watch successfully woke me up, I ate an egg and potato sandwich, and headed to the street, which is cleared of people and cleaned first. Then the police slowly let people advance up the track as they want. There are 2 main turns in the small "track" and ahead in the picture above is the second turn.
Here I am on the track with no way out. I'm just a little nervous. The girl with me, now more nervous than I am, was one of the persons who helped convince me I could do it.
And of course I did it. I positioned myself way ahead of where the toros began and made it to the plaza without a problem. Below are pictures of what I saw. And just to be clear, there was no provoking of the novillos on my part.
This video is short clip after Spain won the world cup.
This video is in the plaza when I watched the participants provoke the novillo for the first time.
This is another video of the novillos, but when I was one of the participants.
