culture - 3/4 - i should log off

Pamplona: Running with the Bulls

July 14, 2010 By Danny

For the weeks leading up to the running, everyone I met who knew anything about San Fermin had the exact same conversation with me:

Them: You’re going for San Fermin.

Me: Yes

Them: Are you running?

Me: Why else would I go?

Them: (not answering my question because clearly there was no answer) Be careful.

So we went. Flying first to Barcelona (that was the cheap flight) and spending a very brief night with an old friend we boarded a bus the next day for Pamplona. We arrived in the evening, after the opening festivities, and felt as though we’d missed the entire party. Everywhere we looked were people dressed in all white with only a red neck-scarf and belt. Many were covered in sangria and were already leaving town. We quickly purchased some overpriced apparel and were on our way.

Sitting down at the home of our host we were basically given a primer in running with the bulls; which parts of the course were more dangerous, which better for viewing, and which easier to survive for another day. We learned that last year someone died, but that death is actually quite rare for the event, and that it was important to be well-rested and sober. It was already midnight, one person in the house was filling an “exterminators” spray bucket with sangria and setting off for the night. Others were turning in so that they could wake up at 3am to get to a good viewing area. Only one of that foursome was planning to run.

In the end we woke up at 6am and within an hour I found myself in the ‘path of the bulls’ ….with time to spare. I set to walking around and trying to make myself comfortable in the cool morning air. Walking toward where the run began I found more space as this was the safer, and therefore less exciting area to be in. At this point in the run the bulls are mostly together and sprinting forward having not yet come to their first corner where they might lose the group, become disoriented, or slip while turning. Any of those situations can become dire rather quickly. I watched as bands played music, old men danced, young men performed stretches and other ‘primadonna’ type rituals, and women laughed and joked from the balconies.

Soon it was time to get excited. A noise came from the front and tons of people started running…..even though there was at least 10 minutes left before go-time. Same thing happened again at 5 minutes. People wanted to get further down the track for their chance to enter the bullring I suppose; or maybe they were just stupid and thought the bulls were running after them. Men at the front began to chant a song that I couldn’t understand while striking their rolled up newspapers in the air. There was a rocket blast, cheering, more running, a first glimpse of bulls, then pandemonium.

I stood waiting to see the bulls as people around me started running at all out sprints. Several knocked into me but I somehow managed to hold my ground despite my injured foot. When I finally saw the bulls running, I finally began to run, taking elbows from fellow runners as they bulled off ‘through me’ to the side with the bulls still 20 or 30 meters away. During this, I too began to make my way toward the side of the street to let the bulls run past me and I’m sure I probably threw and elbow or two as well. Then the bulls ran past, at a full gallop, far to fast for any man save Usain Bolt to keep up with. Below is a video of the run the day I participated:

With the bulls past already, it really did last only a mere instant, I didn’t really know what to do so I kept running/walking in a somewhat forward direction. Eventually I heard the now familiar sound of a cowbell and knew that some others were coming and indeed they were and did. This grouping of bulls seemed to miss the memo titled ‘Running with the Bulls’ as they were merely trotting yet still dangerous all the same. With them past people joined together in that same forward motion, looking over their shoulders the entire time, and began to sing ‘ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole.’ (It sounds better when you sing it, doesn’t it?) I made it all 850 meters to the bullring, which was already closed, and then left the street to go meet Jill at our meeting place.

It may have only lasted a matter of seconds, but I ran with the bulls.

Now enjoy this video from last year. The man who is absolutely destroyed by the bull not only lived, but ran again this year…he’s a local.

San Fermin: Toro! Toro!

July 12, 2010 By Jillian

Leading up to San Fermin, we seemed to meet tons of Spaniards. All had the exact same advice for Danny after he told them he wanted to run with the bulls: “cuidado.”

Cuidado, caution, indeed. We arrived in Pamplona on the first night of the nine night festivities. With the first “encierro” or bull run the next morning, Danny decided he might as well try his luck on the first day and just get it over with. Danny’s going to write about his experience with the encierro later this week, so for now I’ll just leave you in suspense.

Besides the famous encierro, which happens every single morning of the festival, San Fermin is also regarded as the biggest party in Europe. Staring July 6th and ending July 14th, the festival is one easy math equation: sangria+bulls= craziness. All night bands and bars do their best to keep nearly a million people happy and drunk over the nine days of the festival. The median age seemed to be around 18 although there were lots of people our age and older, we felt slightly out of our element. That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy the festivities, but we couldn’t hold a candle to the younger folks.

For the last five hundred years, the encierro ends each morning in the bull ring, where the enormous bulls that have just run down the street are corralled and escorted from the ring as quickly as possible. Left in the ring are hundreds, maybe even a thousand battered, frightened and exhilarated people who have survived the running of the bulls. They are waiting for what can only be described as payback. Now I’ve never witnessed a gladiator competition, but if you’ve seen the movie you might have an idea of what if feels like to be in the ring.

With the big bulls safely out of the picture several smaller bulls, with their horns covered to prevent goring, are released one at a time into the crowd. The doors are closed and the same people who just ran for their lives down the street try to attract the attention of the bull with colored shirts, newspapers and clapping. Some people try to jump the bull or even torment it but the handful that literally try to grab the bull by the horns, are punished quite severely from the crowd of locals and beaten until they let the bull go. Although participants can’t be gored by the bulls, the bulls are still quite strong and can knock people down, toss them into the air, charge them and even run them over. On the day we sat in the bull ring two people were pulled out of the run for medical attention. As you can imagine, people don’t tend to stay in the ring for too long and by the third bull the crowd had cleared considerably, with most of the “runners” relegating themselves to watching from atop the wall or behind a safety barrier. Brutal.

The action is primitive and absolutely horrifying and yet, electrifying. Cheering, jeering and wincing at the action, the crowd is just as much as part of the action as the bulls, probably even more so. It’s like watching a sports game in a crowd of a few thousand people, a very frenzied crowd of people.

If you go: San Fermin runs every year from July 6th-July 14th, and nearly a million people are estimated to attend. Book transportation and accommodation early. The encierro happens every morning of the festival starting July 7th at 8am, but in order to participate or spectate you’ll have to be there much earlier. Follow the rules of the encierro, which are posted all over town, and remember not to participate drunk or drugged. Bulls that participate in the encierro in the morning are killed during a bull fight in the evening, tickets are available at the bullring in advance.

Prague: finally!

July 1, 2010 By Jillian

Let me admit one thing-there are places we’ve gone on this trip which I never planned to go. Not that I didn’t have a good time, just that they weren’t high on my “must do before I die” list. You can probably imagine the places. Then there are the places I wanted to go that Danny didn’t and vice versa. Prague was on a third and more select list: places we both were dying to go.

So, did Prague live up to its expectations? In one word, yes. Although the weather was awful and the only day with sunshine was the day we left, we still loved the city. Without a doubt architecture and culture are what make Prague beautiful. Fortunately the center of Prague wasn’t damaged as badly as other European cities during WWII, so much of the original buildings and work still stand. I happen to be a huge fan of Art Nouveau, which left me usually looking up instead of down, studying the beautiful and ornate buildings around me.

Not all of Prague is nouveau though and we had plenty of time to explore the Castle and its surroundings. Unfortunately several sites within the castle were closed on our visit, so we didn’t get to see some of the main attractions. The famous clock was running though, and although the show was a bit “boring” by modern standards, the skeleton shaking the bell did make us crack a smile.

The history of Prague is a long one though, and the Jewish Quarter tells a long story of the Jewish presence in Bohemia. No where else have we seen Jews intertwined so much with a cities identity and history. For us it was remarkable to see not only historical synagogues, but also the various examples of Judaism’s influence in the culture and architecture of Prague. Like the rest of Europe, a large percentage of Czech’s Jews were killed during the Holocaust, but their legacy lives on in the buildings and monuments around Prague.

Perhaps the most interesting part about Prague is it’s recent history. The first of a few former Soviet block nations on this trip, I was captivated by the recent revolution and the story of Jan Palach. A 19 year old student, Jan and his friends protested the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia by setting themselves on fire. As the first to go, Jan’s death sparked huge protests against the invasion and he became a martyr for freedom in Czechoslovakia. In his memory, anti-communist demonstrations continued in Prague until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. At the day we visited a memorial to him and another student, there were flowers and candles at the site. What struck me the most about their story wasn’t their bravery or their fight against tyranny, it was that the students, more than 40 years later are still recognized as national heroes for taking a stand against their occupiers. To me, that says a lot about the character of this country.

Berlin: Something’s different here.

June 17, 2010 By Jillian

We landed in Berlin bleary eyed after getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning for our flight. (Danny never went to sleep) and immediately something was different. No less than 10 minutes after getting off the plane, we stood in line to buy train tickets, customs and immigration completed, luggage in hand. Right on schedule the train appeared, opened it’s doors and we were whisked away to the center of Berlin. It worked like clockwork. “German efficiency, welcome to Europe,” I thought.

There’s a lot to see and do in Berlin, but first on our list was actually the Egyptian museum. Crazy, I know, considering it has been two weeks since we stood in the Egypt Museum in Cairo. Of course we wanted to see Nefertiti’s head after reading the rather belligerent request for it to be returned on a billboard in the museum in Cairo. For the record, her head was very nice, but not nearly as incredible as we had hoped. In the Sudan we slept under the stars next to the pyramids of Meroe, almost all of which have been destroyed by an Itialian fortune hunter in the 19th Century. Taking the gold jewelry and treasure back to Europe, we assumed while at the pyramids that it had been sold and lost to history. You can imagine my surprise and frankly excitement when I stumbled upon her treasures in this museum. Like a kid in a candy shop I examined every piece with such excitement that I think I scared the guy next to me.

Honestly we spent most our time in Berlin at the museums, given that there are more than 70 of them and both of us are history buffs isn’t too hard to understand. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, remaining sections of the Berlin Wall, road our bikes around the Bradenburg Gate, the German History museum, the site where the Nazi’s famously burned books, and spent nearly three hours exploring the Isalmic Art museum in the Pergamon. By the time we left we were museum-ed out.

Besides the more traditional museums, we also spent a lot of time at museums and sites dedicated to World War II. As Americans it was interesting to see the scholarship and academic work on World War II from a German perspective.

Having hosted, traveled and met several German’s along the way, we were not surprised at the frank and sometimes painful displays related to World War II and the Holocaust. We found the Topography of Terror Museum, on the site of the old SS headquarters in Berlin to be particularly interesting for the displays told a complete history of the SS’s actions during the era with facts and images that we had never seen. We appreciated that the Jewish Museum didn’t focus only on the Holocaust when telling the story of Jew’s in Germany, instead providing a chronological history since the medieval period. We ended our visit to Berlin at the Holocaust memorial located symbolically near the Bradenburg Gate.

Somewhere in there we had time to grab a pretzel, a few beers and cycle all over Berlin. In fact the couchsurfers we stayed with kept us out late each night, not that we’re complaining, beer tasting in the park, barbecuing with friends, playing cards and having some rather deep political conversations. We thought Europe would be a relaxing break for us, but if Berlin is any indication we’re going to be exhausted by the time we leave this continent.

The Obama Affect

May 25, 2010 By Danny

About 6 weeks before departing our home for this trip, we witnessed Barak Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. This was a day that history will long remember, but I’m not sure that anything could have prepared us for the level of Obama fever we encountered here in Africa.

In every country we’ve been in, Barak Obama has come up in conversation. In Colombia a bike repair man told me he had a friend in America, Obama. In Kenya I was told where I could find the Obama family and what tribe he hailed from by the man who cut my hair. In Guatemala, despite efforts by the local priesthood to tell people that Obama had started swine flu personally on his recent trip to Mexico City, many people just wouldn’t believe that ‘their’ Obama could have done anything like that.

It doesn’t end with people though. We have every product and building imaginable with the name ‘Obama’ on it. We’ve used Obama pens, eaten in Obama restaurants, shopped in Obama stores, and even ridden on buses with the familiar “yes we can” scrawled on the back with a photo of our president. I’m not sure there has ever been a time in history (maybe in Western Europe immediately following WWII) where American travelers have been greeted by such enthusiasm everywhere they’ve gone. I just saw an election advertisement, for the recent elections in Sudan, where the only English on the sign was the familiar: “Change: Yes We Can!”

Pamplona: Running with the Bulls

San Fermin: Toro! Toro!

Prague: finally!

Berlin: Something’s different here.

The Obama Affect

Recent Comments

Banking on the Road

Adventure Guides