Pamplona

Leaving Canada behind once again, Adam and I found ourselves in a whirlwind of movement and international travel to get to achieve our first trip goal: Get to Pamplona, Spain to run with the bulls during their San Fermin festival.

We started by flying from Vancouver to London after one day of rest in Vancouver after our hike. In London, we immediately took the underground to get to our accommodation for the first night, Adam’s mother’s house. We will be spending a significant amount of time there at the end of our trip when we plan to explore the London Olympics. 

The next day, we had some time to do some shopping before making our way to continental Europe, so Adam’s mother had suggested that we all go to an antiques auction she knows about. I have never been to an auction, as far as I can recollect, so the prospect of being a part of a bidding war was very enticing. We headed to the auction house early enough to check out the lots which included furniture, art, jewellery, dishware and an assortment of historical items. We paid for a paddle just in case something came up that was irresistible. Well, what was most irresistible to our group was a cheap deal, and Adam and I walked away with two new art pieces for our apartment – pieces that for some reason no one else was willing to bid on, so we won them for bottom dollar. The prize possession of the two is ‘The Colonel’, a piece about which the auction house employee said to Adam, “What prompted you to buy this?” as he handed it over at the end of the event. Tongue-in- cheek apparently, though I think it’s pretty awesome, plus we got to bid at an auction!

Leaving London very quickly behind, we too the Eurostar to Paris for the night. There we met up with my friend Paul with whom I had farmed at Klipper’s Organics in Cawston, BC the previous year. He lives in Paris with his family and goes to the Sorbonne where he studies law. Unfortunately, our meet up was delayed because we had to activate our Eurail pass and make reservations for our train the subsequent morning. For those of you who have never travelled with Eurail, I caution you that this form of travel is not as ‘free’ as is often believed. After an hour in line at Gard du Nord in Paris, we were disappointed to learn that the Eurail seats on the trip we wanted to take were sold out. Our only options were to take five different trains and increase our travel time from 9 hours to 11 hours or to pay for full priced tickets. We opted to buy the tickets at around 110 Euro each.

Given it was our first time travelling together, Adam and I agreed that if we had to eat costs it was something we were willing to do to reduce the stress on ourselves during the trip. Having to pay extra for the train tickets was definitely our first test, but we were able to sort it out together.

Paul came to pick us up at the Gard du Nord. From there we went to have a typical French café-style dinner on one of the streets of Paris, then we headed to meet some of his friends to drink wine beside the Seine. The evening and the ambiance were fabulous. One of the highlights was one of Paul’s friends who is a French rapper rapping over every beat or sound that was made available.

Early the next morning we were off to Pamplona. Neither Adam or I had ever been to Spain before, so we were both eager to see the landscape, meet the people and experience the culture. The challenge on the way to Pamplona was for the first three hours of the train ride, Adam had to stand in the train because we had bought ‘floating’ tickets, and weren’t in fact assigned to any seats. Luckily, after Bordeaux we were able to both sit together for the remainder of the journey.

Pulling into Pamplona, it was very evident that we had arrived at a party. Everyone was wearing red and white, the traditional colours for the San Fermin festival, and the crowd looked like they had just come from a good time. Immediately we went to reserve all the train tickets we required for Spain so as not to end up in a similar situation as we had in France. There was no line-up and all our trains were available! Also, it was the first time Adam has heard me speak and interact in Spanish, and he quickly shared with me that he was very impressed that I can communicate so effectively in a language I refer to as my weakest language. After a night of speaking in French in Paris, Adam also said that he is quite certain my Spanish is stronger than his French.

I guess my languages are one of the reasons I feel so confident travelling on my own. I do prefer to travel to countries where I will be able to converse and exist without too many issues, and thus far, the fact that I have been able to speak the languages I do has been very beneficial to us as we are able to get to places and get the items we want very quickly without having to struggle to express our desires to strangers in a foreign tongue.

We arrived at our hotel, the most expensive one in which we are staying on our trip ($70/night each) primarily because of the festival. The hotel was nice, but unfortunately the room to which we had been assigned was a smoking room. Not being able to bear the overwhelming odour, we were able to have our room changed (and even upgraded) to a non-smoking room with a view of the city and a Jacuzzi tub (which ended up being very well used after our long days walking around Pamplona). We were so easily accommodated because I often have respiratory problems and the air could easily aggravate our health.

In the evening we went to town to find some dinner, though we were quite tire after staying up most of the night in Paris and then travelling all day. We were staying about a 30 minute bus ride out of town, yet the transit was very convenient and I would not consider the distance a deterrent from staying at Hotel Andia again in the future. The fairgrounds took over a significant portion of the city. We decided to eat at an outdoor cafeteria where food vendors were selling unusual combinations of what must be tradition Spanish cuisine. I ate steamed octopus with potatoes covered in olive oil and paprika. Delicious! There were also paellas, barbequed meats of all kinds, cold mushrooms with onions and lots of chorizo too. We then walked through the market area before finding the dessert section of the festival where Adam quickly bought us a bag of churros, which are deep fried batter sticks covered in sugar. If we weren’t walking as much as we are, I am convinced we would be returning to Canada a little more plump than we will be.

Our one full day in Pamplona was game day. We woke up at 5:25 am to take the 5:50 am bus with the other ambitious Hotel Andia guests to get to the running road before 6:30 am so that Adam could be well positioned for the run before the police clear the street at 7.00 am. When we arrived to the downtown core, it would not have been obvious that it was just after 6.00 am, because the streets were littered with people celebrating (read stumbling around in a drunken stupor), cheering and preparing for daylight to arrive. Apparently during San Fermin it is a common practice to go out all night until the bull run happens at 8.00 am and then go home. However, the danger is that many of the individuals who end up being gored in the run are those that go out drinking the night before and at some point in the night decide it would be a fabulous idea to do the run, and then are not in a physical or mental state to stay alert when the bulls are released. It is these people that the police heavily monitor during the run. All of the people Adam met lining up for the run were sober and there to safely experience the world-renowned cultural experience.

I was not running. I made my way to the end of the running route to be sure to get one of the limited spots on the fence to watch the race. Every day the city puts up and tears down this massive wooden fences along the running track. If you are not there right when the fence goes up (usually around 6.30 – 7.00), you will not be getting a seat. So I sat there on the fence and made friends with two Ecuadorians and a Mexican as I waited for Adam to run by. I had zero confidence that I would be able to spot him in a crowd of men all wearing red and white, but you never know right?

In fact, I didn’t see Adam during the run, but I took a video of the first minute of the event and it turns out that I captured Adam in my video! He was one of the lucky few that was far enough ahead of the pack that he made it into the bull ring at the end of the run where he was able to ‘play’ with smaller more docile bulls for an additional 30 minutes in front of a stadium full of people. Unfortunately I had to hear about the second part of his morning second hand because we had had a miscommunication, and I thought we were going to meet right after the run at our meet up spot. When Adam hadn’t shown up 30 minutes after the run was clearly over, I was convinced he was in the hospital, even though I also was convinced Adam was one of those people that never really gets hurt. I didn’t know what was going on! In my mind I had told myself that the run had been too ‘tame’ for Adam and so he had decided to spice it up by slapping the bulls and weaving in front of them at which point he got gored or knocked over….luckily none of these things happened, though he told me I was right about the him being bored by the run.

The morning we enjoyed fresh bread, cheese, cured meat and a coffee sitting together on a side street in the sun coming down from the high of the morning. We then walked around the city to explore the churches and historical parts of the town. There was so much activity, it is impossible not to be entertained during San Fermin. The gorgeous sunny weather didn’t hurt as well.

We definitely took advantage of the Spanish siesta for the afternoon after a busy morning. The evening we were starting with going to our first bull fight. Now prior to coming to Pamplona, I was unaware that the bulls are actually killed during a bull fight. Apparently I had imagined a Sesame Street version of bullfighting up until this point in my life where the bullfighter gets points based on how well he can control the movements of the bull using his red flag. The goal in my imagined bullfighting, was for a bullfighter to get the most points and then win the tournament. So, the real concept of bullfighting was something very new to me when we arrived in Spain.

We got tickets easily and walked into a rowdy stadium. When you buy tickets you buy either in the sun or in the shade. There are two groups of people that come to watch a bullfight – 1) those who are interested in the art or sport of bullfighting and 2) those who want to get rowdy and drink. The first group sits in the shade and the second sits in the sun. We were sitting on the cusp on the sunny side.

Unusual traditions in the crowds during a bullfight were that if it is someone’s birthday (or if someone is accused of having a birthday that day) the crowd covers them in red wine. Other traditions included eating dinner after the first round of fights – each bullfighter gets to fight two bulls.

The bullfight. The bull is released and chases three novice bullfighters around the ring to get tired. Once he is tired, two horsemen come out , who sit atop horses that are covered in a protective blanket, and the bull is stabbed in the back by the horsemen. The bull, not being pleased with the back stabbing, usually attacks the horse trying to gore the horse with its horns, however I was most impressed that the horses stood still and took the beating through their protective layers. The bull is then stabbed with six batons that stay attached to the bull for the remainder of the fight. Adam and I were both disappointed that the bull was bled (literally) of its energy before the real bullfighter came out to taunt it. Having worked with cattle for an extended period this year, I do recognize that anything can happen when working with animals, but the odds of the bull having a chance to challenge the bullfighter are greatly reduced. The bullfighter then leads the bull in a series of moves to exhaust it even further before taking a sword and stabbing it through the back. The bull then collapses to the ground and is dragged off by horses.

Adam was routing for the bulls to win. Sadly, the one time the bull got the better of the bullfighter and rolled him around the ring for a distance Adam was in the bathroom! Adam had left to go find the washroom and soon thereafter the people sitting around me started to tell me that I was never going to see him again. Apparently the bathrooms are difficult to locate in the arena. He had been gone such a long time, I was starting to believe they might be right, but kept trying to assure them that Adam is quite capable when it comes to challenging situations. So when he did return and we all cheered for him it was quite a relief.

The night we drank and celebrated with the rest of Pamplona including enjoying the nightly fireworks before saying goodbye to our first Spanish destination. One we both considered a success.