Category: Sanfermin Bloggers

China appears on the balcony

Sebastian Stone has a smile which is pleasing to look at. His name is Latin but his slanty eyes and the tone of his skin betray his Asian background. In fact, he comes from Taiwan, China. He is repeating his second visit to Pamplona during Sanfermin fiestas. He works as a tourist guide and he acknowledges that Spain is his favorite European country. “Here the people are the nicest and the weather is the best”. He explains himself in pretty basic Spanish. With him there are another 25 Chinese who have come from many different parts of the planet, from Shanghai, from California, from Taiwan… He wished to learn about the Camino to Santiago.

“In summer it is better than being in the south of Spain.” explains Sebastian. Among his group are four elderly people, several children, some youths … his first port of call has been Pamplona. They rented a balcony in City Hall square to enjoy for the first time in their lives the magic sensations of the Running of the Bulls.

All of the group have large cell phones with them – most of them Android and made in South Korea. They can’t stop taking photos. Some of them are members of the same family. One of the ladies stands out for her bulky and large size, perhaps she measures about one meter eighty or so. She explains to her kids with a strong American accent just what is about to happen at the bullrunning event. She is from Los Angeles, California. But, without a doubt, the curious people of all are the elderly ones, three ladies and a gentleman, all looking to be over seventy years of age. They seem to have just come out of some classy Eastern movie. What a pity I have no Chinese nor they any English.

Isabel, the local guide who Works for the local Company, Destino Navarra, which lets the balconies, is encouraging them to use all the space on the balconies, but most of them stay on the same balcony, the one at the corner of Mercaderes, and they don’t budge from there. While some of them understand English, it is not easy to talk to understand them. They have a strong accent and after several attempts with the same sentence, I give up. They have some coffee, eat some buns, they chat… without making too much noise. It is hard to believe there are 25 of them in total – it seems more like a dozen people or so. They don’t raise their voices; they move gracefully, they don’t fill much space…all in sharp contrast to the street below them with its noise and rowdiness.

¿Do you like to live in Taiwan? l ask Sebastian. “It is not bad, although the country is too small, he replies. An island of 383 km long, almost stuck to China and with only about 26 million inhabitants and lots of beaches. To get there from here would take a18 hours flight with a stopover in Thailand the Portuguese called it Formosa (beautiful island). Sebastian is dressed in a rose-colored tee shirt and black jeans. None of the group have dressed themselves in the traditional red and White of Sanfermin. Tomorrow they will head on their tour with a stop at San Millán de la Cogolla in the Rioja region. I recommend them to have a look at the bulls in the gas pens, but they don’t have time. They asked me how many bulls will run in the Running of the bulls and what happens afterwards to the bulls. They are surprised to hear my short explanation.

Finally, it is 8 o’clock and the three rockets go off. All of them prepare to watch with their cell phone cameras at the ready. The herd of bulls arrive amid the crowded runner. They pass so fast that there is hardly time to enjoy the moment. Inside the sitting room of the flat there is a TV broadcasting the event. Everyone gathers there to watch the live broadcast. The Chinese seem to open their eyes wide in similar style to the Japanese cartoons. Aaaaaaah, uaaaaaaa, they exclaim in unison. It sounds like a very sweet and innocent tone… What do they really think? What do they really feel? Do they think we are crazy? They will never have seen a live fighting bull in their lives before. Will you run in the Running of the Bulls when you grow up, they ask one of the children. “Perhaps, the child replies amid smiles and giggles and wide eyes after watching the bullrunning. They all together exclaim that the child speaks perfect English.

Getting stuck into the fiestas. Bulls, sangría, foreigners and gangs

SANGRÍA, THE ELIXIR OF THE FIESTA
“Red wine, water, sugar, citric acid and natural extracts from fruit and cinnamon, 5, 5 grades of alcohol”. This is the ‘industrial’ formulae of a sangría that is being sold in bottles of plastic. Nothing to do with real authentic sangría, of course, made from natural fruit (lemons, oranges, peaches), real wine, sugar … is left to steep for hours before consumption. They say that Hemingway was very fond of the stuff and for sure he would have tasted a lot of good quality sangria and not this bogus brew which is flooding the streets these days in Pamplona.

In Sanfermin, the sangría and the kalimotxo (red wine with Coca-Cola) soak bodies and streets relentlessly. A real natural- made sangría in any bar is going to cost its cost, so most people opt for a cheap next best thing that does, in fact, fulfil the function of alcoholizing the people and getting them in party mood without skinning their pockets too much. For many, nothing gives them more pleasure than to shower their friends with this same sangria liquid. At the Txupinazo, at the sunny side of the bullring, with the Peña clubs… it serves as an indispensable friend. Like it or not, you end up either drinking it or having a shower in it. And amid all the hustle and bustle, you are bound to come across a bottle of Don Simón sangría, made in the south of Spain by the century-old García Carrión firm.

Sangría was brought to Spain by the English in the XIX century. And, like that other institution – The Spanish Omelet, everyone seems to have their own special recipe for it. Although these days it does not seem to matter too much how it actually tastes: lo the most important thing is the dancing and singing and acting the idiot. Drink whatever can get you worked up!

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GUIRIS HEMINGWAYNES
The guiris (as the foreigners are fondly called here) who come to Pamplona are very appreciative of the traditions that we keep here: the guys tune up like hemingwaynes just recently come out of the gym while the gals remind us of some old Hollywood movies. They dress up in white, put on the red necktie, put on their big smiles and they complete the fiesta look with a wineskin which they usually fill with sangria and which they carry around at all hours. They take a swig from it when they feel like doing so and when the right moment comes, they throw some over the first person who passes close by.

Many of these guiris, the youngest of them, go around in gangs, often wearing the very same tee shirt. They move around in packs, happy and cheerful, they sing, they laugh, they drink, they dance and they generally let their hair down.… as the local people look on in some surprise from behind a more temperate gaze. Then again, when the alcohol begins to work on both the visitors and the locals, guiris and locals both let their hair down in the same way and they both blend into the same wild party scene.
Where are you from? This is your first time in Pamplona? The bulls will run tomorrow here…with just a few simple sentences you can make friends with guiris in Sanfermines, because the actual conversation is the least important thing. You drink a swig of something, the Txaranga brass band emits some music, you lift your glass of sangria, kalimotxo or beer in toast, and the music does the rest. Hemingway loved to be carried along by the human swarm. He gave a lucid account of the party mood in his recommendable novel, “Fiesta“, and all the guiris who hit the streets of the city seem to be following his steps and they seem to be equally fascinated by this carnival scene with its ancestral echoes.

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“BUT I CONTINUE TO BE KING”
Without any doubt, the most singular thing about Sanfermin fiestas is the Running of the Bulls event. Scorned by some and glorified by almost everyone, this event generates enormous expectations that are not easily explained away. With two or three days to go before the opening of fiestas, the 48 bulls that feature in the spectacular bullrunning of little more than 850 meters over the eight days of fiestas – are already ensconced in their pens at the Corrales del Gas. Separated by their own particular bull-breed characterizations, they will spend the last few days of their lives here.

Many people like to go down to the pens to have a look at them close up. Seen together and without any runners around them, they look even more powerful and bigger than they do on the course. There they stand, quite immobile with a look of deep concentration on their faces, like lions in the wild. At the slightest movement, their large horns seem to toss the very air.

These wet damp days give them a heavy, mud-caked look. It is hard to believe that these are the same animals which will cover the whole distance of the course in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. And yet they will, with all their 500 –odd kilos or even 600 kilos… the Miura… the Victoriano… the Doloresaguirre…. the Jandilla… anyone who knows anything about Bulls can easily distinguish these different breeds of bull….

As always in these dates, the phantom of death seems to hover in the street. Up to the present, 16 young men have died in the running of the bull’s event. Most of these have been young men in their 20s, among them a Mexican and a North-American. But there have also been hundreds of injuries accumulated down the years. This year, in an instigation taken by several different groups, a metal post pole has been erected as part of the wooden fencing in memory of those “dead in the running of the bulls”.

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WITHOUT THE MATES THERE IS NO FIESTA
to experience the Sanfermin fiestas is to experience them in company. Without the mates the fiesta is not quite a fiesta. The gang of mates unites the longings for partying, absorbs potential bores, lifts the spirits and generally helps you to enjoy the whole scene even more. Having the gang means having a fiesta schedule that keeps things together: meeting up early on the 6th to have a brunch, be it in a bar, in a clubhouse, in a street corner. You drink together, you embrace, you walk together to the chupinazo opening event, and you carry your open bottles of sangria so that the cops will let you pass to the square without confiscating the drink and to prevent people throwing things.

Except for the 6th, the gangs usually go out at night, after a long afternoon siesta, so that they can “give their all” at night and sleep it off all day. The “survival kit” in fiestas consists of an old cell phone so that nobody is tempted to steal it, money and keys kept in safe places (for the girls in their bra, for the lads in their socks). Something odd should also be worn, a funny hat, multi-color sunglasses, a false moustache… a headband…a gaudy necklace…every year there is some new trash to wear. You can always buy something ridiculous from one of those tall skinny Africans that sell on the streets.

There are plenty of opportunities to take some selfies at any crazy hour of the night, to take photos acting the idiot…to eat a “sambo”…to queue up to have a piss at a public urinal…to watch the Fireworks sitting on the grass and then go on to a good open-air concert (the age you have will decide what venue to go to). Then in the early hours of the morning you hit the bars (again depending on what music you like). And so the night goes by…the alcohol flows…the rimmel too….you make some foolish chat with the guiris…the night passes…

Before you know it, it is now 6.30 a.m.- the hour that the spirits begin to droop…you are knackered….and hungry…cold and shivering…and you have to wait until 8.00 for the Running of the Bulls! Some people stay on the streets, others go to the Bullring. There were always free seats there but this year, for the first time, it is necessary to pay 3 euros. When the bullrunning ends, they let loose the frisky small bulls. If some smart-aleck tries to catch the animal by the tail or tries to wrestle with it, you join in the general booing and jeering from the watching crowd that creates a sound that pierces your eardrums.

Finally, the night party is drawing to a close. Spirits droop and fall. Long faces. Runny makeup. Red-rimmed eyes. It is necessary to have some breakfast: fritters and hot chocolate for the more refined… the really hungry ones go for a hamburger or sandwich… There is always the classic white coffee with a croissant. Now there is not long to go…before you can hit the sack! You make one last big effort and start to drag yourself home…or go to the home of a friend…or that of your grandmother…to the hotel…to the boarding house….. to the camping site…wherever. The essential thing is to find a spot to crash out…to sleep…alone or in company…finally to sleep the good sleep and hope to find yourself fully recovered for the next night out…

Waiting Mat Dowsett

(English) Beyond the Walls – Waiting

By Matt Dowsett

Pamplona. Home of the running of the bulls and the fiesta to end all fiestas. San Fermín draws a varied and international following, but very few foreign visitors are aware that Pamplona is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fiestas and bulls. Across Spain and beyond there are many hundreds of fiestas and thousands of encierros every year. Within the old walls of Pamplona a local drama is played out on an international stage, but beyond the walls are the unseen and untold tales of the people, the bulls and the streets of these other fiestas.

May.
San Fermín is just a couple of months away and the wonderful fiestas of August in Navarra are less than a hundred days of waiting to endure before they are on us. The anticipation grows and starts to ache at us in a way that we haven’t known since the harsh cold of January when the fiestas and encierros seemed about as far away as they ever could be.

Now the ache comes from an urgency, an urgency to be back in amidst the music, the singing, the dancing, the hot sun, the alegría, the passion and the intensity. It is so close that you can almost touch it but it is cruelly far enough away to be frustrating.

Waiting is not only reserved for those days outside of fiesta, but also within fiesta. Notably we wait in the encierro.

Some of this waiting is harder than others. Waiting in the streets of Pamplona is hard. It is an anxious and noisy time where there appears to be no space whatsoever for solitude, for a moment of peace with yourself to collect your thoughts and make your own preparations. All around you many other people are going through their own routines in their tiny little spots but they all overlap and they all intrude on your own concentration. Pamplona before the encierro contributes to stress, it does not ease it. Contrast this with the photograph which is taken during an encierro in Sartaguda in Navarra. Notice the casual attitudes despite the danger of what may come up the street. Notice the relaxed anticipation – these are people who are nervous, but appear to have all the time in the world to prepare. I lean on the shoulder of my friend, comfortable in the moment and no doubt sharing a story or the promise of a beer when the encierro is finished. Perhaps we are talking about where we will eat later or perhaps we are talking about the possibilities of other encierros that day. This is waiting with a difference.

But often that waiting is not so relaxed, and in many locations the seriousness and popularity of the encierro takes us back to a much more watchful and nervous state.
We wait. Waiting is painful. We suffer for it.

Our suffering is special. The pain we feel is worse than anybody else, but the sunrise we see is more beautiful than anybody else. We are like the moon; one side forever in darkness, invisible as it should be. But remember the dark moon draws the tides also. Our time will come.

Maite H Mateo. http://www.maitehmateo.com

San Fermin Things. An A-Z of Fiesta. Part One.

Read the Part Two HERE

To celebrate the fact that fiesta is rapidly coming down on us like a ton of bull, and also that the worst machine ever made since men lived in the caves of Altamira, (my computer) seems to be working okay after some ancient remedying, (if in doubt, give it a clout) I’m back with another article after 7 months.It’s just a piece of fluff and fun, really, but fun fiesta fluff to warm up my typing fingers, and this little A to Z of some of what makes up Pamplona’s extraordinary Fiesta of San Fermin actually contains, yes, the blindingly obvious but also some of those vital and varied things that makes it for 9 days and a thousand nights the greatest and most wonderful place on the planet. And yes, it is in many cases very much a personal list. 2nd part next month.

Continue reading…

Alegría, by Mat Dowsett

Pamplona. Home of the running of the bulls and the fiesta to end all fiestas. San Fermín draws a varied and international following, but very few foreign visitors are aware that Pamplona is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fiestas and bulls. Across Spain and beyond there are many hundreds of fiestas and thousands of encierros every year. Within the old walls of Pamplona a local drama is played out on an international stage, but beyond the walls are the unseen and untold tales of the people, the bulls and the streets of these other fiestas.

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” Emily Dickinson.
A single and unifying element of the fiestas of Navarra is to be found in the interaction of people and streets when the txupinzo has taken place. The anticipation of those days of joy, the pent-up emotions and overwhelming sense of goodwill suddenly comes pouring out in a wave of happiness and mutual celebration. This is alegría.

Alegría is a simple and uncomplicated feeling that can be overwhelming or can actually be very childlike. Alegría is very personal, but some might compare it to a form of enlightenment; when the mind and body become at ease, at one with their environment and when all cares and concerns melt away into the trivial echoes of somewhere else.
On the streets of a Navarran town in fiestas the collective spirit, the unity and the humanity brought together is accompanied by music, dancing, food and drink. It is difficult in these times not to feel the sense of joy, very much like Christmas morning. This feeds the soul.
To celebrate is to live, and to celebrate with friends is to live many times over. When the feeling of alegría is shared then it becomes memorable.

Here, in the photograph, is a personal moment of alegría. This is the Navarran city of Tafalla less than an hour after the txupinazo on the 14th August in a year not too long ago. The scene is very familiar as friends, in the spirit of the moment, sing along with each other with shared happiness and in the knowledge that the fiesta is stretching out in front of them like a lush, green plain.

This is our fiesta, our alegría.

Más allá de las paredes – Ego, por Mat Dowsett

Versión traducida al castellano, aquí.

“The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel crown.” William Blake.

“When someone sings his own praises, he always gets the tune too high.” Mary H Waldrip.

“I don’t believe in elitism, I don’t think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.” Quentin Tarantino.

Every year during San Fermín it seems that one particular toy, trinket or gadget is more popular than the rest. They become fashionable and take off like no others. A few years ago this ‘honour’ went to the loud-hailers (or megaphones) that became so irritating they were eventually banned.

These loudhailers were unique. What they did was quite remarkable as they allowed the individual to lift their voice above the rest of the crowd; to be heard, to be able to express themselves. It was truly liberating…in theory. In truth the outcome was that everybody had a lot to say and none of it was worth listening to.

The modern technological world of data, social media and smartphones has allowed our voices to be heard on a wider scale and to a greater audience. A runner can tweet his last thoughts at 07:59, record his bull-running experience on a Go-Pro, then upload the video via YouTube and Facebook to a global audience by 08:05.

Suddenly our society seems to demand that we become stars of our own reality show. Suddenly we all need to be heroes, we all need to be famous, we all need to be known. The encierros have fallen victim to this same narcissism such that everybody wants to write a book about their encierros, be in their own film and to become part of the encierro cult of celebrity.

Whatever happened to running for the sheer hell of it? Didn’t Helen Keller say “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing”?

Nietzsche would sympathise. As human beings we yearn for meaning. Our existential minds function on a risk/reward balance and so if a runner takes the risk he damn well wants the reward in return. He wants recognition. He wants affirmation and he wants to be admired by all his peers. This is natural and understandable but should runners embrace this or even heavily promote it, or should they minimise it and step away from it in favour of something more humble, something more personally intimate and, at the end of the day, something more enlightened?

What many runners forget is that the encierro is not a competition. There are no trophies, awards, points, leagues or championships. To attribute some kind of classification or hierarchy becomes both arbitrary and artificial. Remember that a first-time runner with no experience has just as much right to be on the streets as a seasoned runner of many years. As long as they follow the rules they take their own chances and the true contest is with themselves and themselves alone. Instead the running community has evolved and has made the mistake of turning people it admires into heroes and heroes into gods.

Now runners aspire to a number of things; to be part of a perceived ‘elite’, to run without a break for decades, to get that perfect photograph of the perfect run, to be in the newspapers or pinpointed on TV and be called out as a great runner. All of these things are a part of the process of moving away from the encierro as being personal and individual. Instead this is a move to a different set of egotistical motives where the encierro itself becomes secondary to the celebrity that comes with it.

When we deify people they become infallible and we close our minds to the reality of the world around us and them. We then aspire to be like these people but do so with these closed minds. It is an illusion and one that leads us down a road towards the celebration of ego and not the celebration of the soul. It is not alegría.

Similarly, when we choose to declare ourselves to be members of an elite, when we make our films and write our books then we are arrogantly claiming to represent something which we do not own and which we were not chosen to speak for. We should consider with great care the implications of standing up and shouting about it through our loud-hailers. We should be careful about what we claim to be. There are plenty of other voices that are much quieter but may be more knowledgeable and may hold a contradictory view to our own. We cannot claim to speak for everyone, and we cannot declare ourselves to be great.

As George RR Martin wrote; “Any man who must say ‘I am the King!’ is no true king.”

While I appear to be condemning, I am also appreciative of this encierro world. Pamplona’s encierro is truly remarkable. Yet, if I could go back in time I would do things differently with the hindsight of experience. I made my own mistakes, not least spending far too much time trying to be recognised as a runner and not enough time simply enjoying myself. If I rewound the 10 years on the streets of Pamplona I would not have worn the blue shirt that I hoped would help me stand out in photos, and my own book would have turned out very differently with a greater emphasis on the encierro history and without the inclusion of the focus on individual runners or my own self-indulgent opinion. I learned to view encierros differently thanks to travelling wider than Pamplona. This was no overnight revelation, but a gradual transition and I realised that when I stopped worrying about getting a good photo, stopped worrying about having a perfect run then I started to enjoy the encierros much more than I ever had.

I recall running one morning in Tafalla down towards the Plaza de Toros. Three of the toros had strung out in a line. I was just behind another runner I knew and just in front of a pastore. The uninterrupted view of the toros that came gliding past us just inches away, was spectacular and memorable. My fellow runner and I embraced at the end of the run in mutual recognition of a wonderful experience of being so close to these animals in full flight and to be able to drift away and watch them vanish through the main gate. Then it was over and we went our separate ways. I have no photograph of that encierro, There was no TV coverage, it did not make the newspapers. Nobody congratulated my running and nobody cared except for my friend who shared it with me. But what I have and always will have is the knowledge that I ran with pure joy in my heart and with no other motive.

Let’s be honest, no regular runner follows the same mental course from very first run to very last. When we first step out into the streets we simply want to try it out, to survive and come home safe. As we run more we may choose to try to perfect a certain stretch, to push ourselves closer and closer or we may choose to hold a certain point time after time. Later on in life we may abandon the idea of running well in favour of simply wanting to be out there to enjoy the atmosphere and get a glimpse of the toros. We each make our own choices in the encierro and as such our attitudes and behaviours are then open to being praised or criticised, and in a very Kiplingesque way we should be able to deal with both outcomes equally. Our own choices dictate whether or not we are the type to seek out the encierro celebrity or to shun it. In the end, neither are wrong, but my argument is that a runner can be acting within the rules but outside of the “spirit of the encierro”. My personal belief is that certain attitudes and motives are not truly within the spirit of the encierro even if they are perfectly within the rules. However, no single person makes this call; we do not own the fiesta, we do not own the encierro.

Adding layers of additional complexity to the world that surrounds our encierros detracts from the true heart of the event. We should always go back to that datum which is the fundamental foundation of why we are there; streets and animals. All of the additional celebrity is a complication that distracts us from what it is that joins us, drives us. As I am fond of saying to some of my friends, and heavily paraphrased from the famous British rock climber Ron Fawcett:

“Walk out onto the course of your favourite encierro. Stand in the middle of the street and trace the line of the run going away from you. There, you’re home.”

You may surprised to learn that you don’t need to make a loud noise to be a success. Some of the quietest people are those having the most fun, and some of the best encierro runners are people we don’t know, and will never know.

Run as you will, but if you can then reach into your heart and run because of the joy that sits there, and “not for the sake of a ribboned coat, or the selfish hope of a season’s fame” as Sir Henry Newbolt put it. Put the Go-Pro away, turn your smartphone off and then run for yourself and run for fun. Or more simply; run as you wish to run, but put the loud-hailer down.

SUMMER CAMP FOR LUNATICS

San Thirteen Re-Seen

Well…that was some fiesta this year. A San Fermin quite unlike any I have ever known. This heartfelt city is famous for so much and renowned for so many things, but whatever it has become known for over the centuries, be it The Camino de Santiago, The Fiesta of San Fermin and all it entails, the peñas, the bull runs, Hemingway, Osasuna (just kidding…I think!) the clue is in the word “heartfelt” there.

Continue reading…

Cohete, by Matthew Dowsett

Pamplona. Home of the running of the bulls and the fiesta to end all fiestas. San Fermín draws a varied and international following, but very few foreign visitors are aware that Pamplona is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fiestas and bulls. Across Spain and beyond there are many hundreds of fiestas and thousands of encierros every year. Within the old walls of Pamplona a local drama is played out on an international stage, but beyond the walls are the unseen and untold tales of the people, the bulls and the streets of these other fiestas.

At 8am and in those moments afterwards, you may hear a distant explosion as a rocket known as a cohete reaches up into the sky and leaves a puff of white smoke. The sound tells you that the encierro has started/stopped. It is very rare to see the rocket, it is an anonymous punctuation in the morning – a sign from the gods that the die is cast and the bulls that haunt our dreams have been released.

Elsewhere the cohete is much more visible. Seen in this picture from Funes in Navarra. The cohete is everywhere, and is a crucial part of the encierros. Without the cohete the people may not know that it is time to close their doors, put up their shutters, lock their shops and send their customers on their way for a short time. Without the cohete the group of young people gathered around the bar may not know that a horned animal will be running down the street at any moment. In Fune, for example, this is very serious – on some mornings the streets are so quiet that a vaca or torico can run a lonely line up deserted streets and only meet a person after a hundred metres of emptiness.

The cohete is one of the vehicles whereby the encierros are efficiently run, and they are used widely, though not uniformly. Not every cohete is fired from the hand as in the photograph, and with good reason. One evening in Valtierra we had finished our run, the manada was back in the corrales and the jefe attached a cohete to the barriers and lit it with his cigar. We stood a few metres away awaiting the whoosh and the arcing smoke before the final explosion that would open the gates and send us into the evening to enjoy a fine meal somewhere and talk about the encierros of the day. Instead the cohete remained on the barriers and exploded with an enormous boom that made our ears ring and brought derisory comments from the nearby balconies.

The next day we stood a little further away, and a good thing too as the cohete exploded again. Once bitten, twice shy.

(English) SLEEPERS, by Bill Hillman

Image: Miguel Goñi

Billseye
by Tim Pinks

The chap in the superb photo below, for those who don’t know him, is Bill Hillman, and he wrote something about one of this years runs that I thought was just so good it needed to be seen.

11th Jobenero - Copy

As those of you who read this more or less monthly series of articles knows, I almost always prefer to write about anything else but myself. But this month I’m going even further, as not only am I not going to blow my own trumpet, but I’m going to use this space to blow someone else’s. The remarkable piece below isn’t even written by me, but by the above mentioned Bill Hillman, one of the “new” generation of bull runners, and a very good one at that.

Although there is slightly more to the article than that, because he was actually running that morning as the dramatic events unfolded, and he gives what for me is a real skin-tingling account of what he experienced. I think it’s an excellent piece, and parts of it, as mentioned, for personal reasons which I wont go into here, left me shaking. As I say, Bill wrote the article, but I’ve furnished it with the pictures. Hope you don’t mind, Bill. Take it away, maestro.

SLEEPERS
By Bill Hillman

There’ve been many deadly human pile ups in the history of Pamplona ’s bull run. This year a pile up hospitalized 23 people and left one battling for his life.

On July 13th it was the Fuente Ymbro bulls’ turn to run the streets of Pamplona and I was happy because they were noble and majestic and I always ran well with them. I left early from my starting position at the last section of the course like usual and was striding cleanly in the center of the street with good vision of the herd as they approached. Three galloping black bulls lined up in a loose string with Aitor, the best young Spanish mozo running the lead animal. Aitor strode in his tall, long gate in front of the snout of the muscular animal?man and beast in perfect synch. Aitor’s white hoodie with black and red stripes fluttered as I matched their pace and approached, shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

As I cruised beside Aitor a woman tripped in front of him. He started to fall and I surged in and swung my paper behind his back and swatted the bull’s horns to attract him away from goring Aitor. Aitor dropped to the stones and I led the bull and ran in front of his horns. We merged into one speeding force before the tunnel into the arena.

As I stepped into the tunnel a small pile-up of five people tripped me. I tried to leap it and fell flat on my belly. The bull ambled on. I crawled to the two-foot tall opening that lines the bottom of the tunnel and slipped inside. The room is large and empty.

Suddenly screams volleyed in from the tunnel and a powerful roar of horror exploded into the dark room. Dozens of runners flew in through the low opening. I reached down and pulled them in. Suddenly Aitor’s striped sleeve appeared and I yanked him through and to his feet. The inflow of bodies stopped but the dread continued. I got down on my belly to look out. A regal white bull sat at the opening of the tunnel in quiet meditation. At the entrance to the ring a horrific mountain of people jams the path into the arena. Then the white bull climbed to his hooves. The runners in the tunnel scrambled.

I decided I should go out and try to help if I could. The white bull gets up and trots into the pile. I crawled back out into the tunnel and finally clearly saw the hundred or so white and red clad people crushed in the opening to the arena. Twelve gigantic bovine are stacked atop them in the center. The white bull turned and I panicked and nearly jumped out through the slot on the other side of the tunnel, but he didn’t attack. None of them did. They were afraid and the fear mysteriously calmed them instead of igniting them to rage.

Then something gives way and the blockage breaks. I helped Josecho nearly close the red metal doors and then followed him in. Regretfully I stepped over the fallen bodies. Then I was onto the sand of the ring. The bulls vanished. I went back to the unraveling pile and pulled people out until they all scrambled away. Underneath it I found a scattered pile of tennis shoes and five slumbering men. Their faces were swollen like big red tomatoes slowly turning blue. All of their mouths were agape but none of them seemed to be breathing. I looked up and the herd materialized and circled the arena dumbfounded.

Afraid that the bulls will return and finish off the unconscious men, I grabbed one of them by the arm and drug him away. It looks like someone bludgeoned his head with a baseball bat. Others appeared and we picked him up and tried to give him to a Policía Foral. The officer only yelled at us and waved his baton in our faces. We put the sleeper down on the white sand. I looked at him and knew he was very bad. His face was bluish-purple and he was clearly dying.

A mozo with a colorful shirt yelled and picked him up. I helped carry him and we cross the ring. A Red Cross medic appeared and I screamed “¿Dónde?” in his face and he pointed. We crossed the ring. There’s an erratic electricity that exudes from the dying; it ejected sparks out into my hands and numbed them as we crossed the ring. The life inside him undulated and surged under his skin warm in my hands. Suddenly I was exhausted and nearly fell as we approached another tunnel.

With the last of my strength we carried him through a door up a flight of stairs. A stretcher flung out of a doorway at the top and we put him down unconscious and purple with his mouth urging for air. As I turned to leave they carried two more in behind him?both asleep and looking very grave. A pale young man gored under his arm walked in?his shirt torn, wet and red. His eyes are wide and strangely placid.

More “Forales” appeared. They push all of us away including the gored young man. I yelled “¡Cornada!” and point at the goring. And I think he got in before the one in the colorful shirt put his arm around me and led me away. I tried to make sense of it all as I climbed out trembling and remembering the way his blood gushed and convulsed under his skin like the life was running scared to escape.

As I got outside I realized I had to find my wife and I ran down to our place and buzzed and they said she was looking for me at the arena. I ran down to Bar Txoko and they said she was just there and I rounded the corner and there she was. I took her in my arms and she throbbed and cried and we held each other in a doorway for a long time. Then she finally calmed and smacked me across the face for scaring her and we laughed, she still doesn’t understand why I do this. As my friends appeared safe and healthy I remembered why I run and we all hugged a lot at Bar Txoko.

Then someone told me they’d screwed up with the doors and I sat with my head in my hands and wondered if the young man was dead.

Later I found out his name was Jon Gerónimo Mendoza, a 19 year old from Vitoria Spain . He’d fallen in the pile up and the many people and the immense, six ton herd crushed his chest and suffocated him. He was in a coma and on life support at the local hospital, most people gave him a slim chance of survival.

As I watched the footage of the run I realized that it was partially caused by a man in charge of one of the doors into the ring. He’d opened it to let some of the “Forales” in so they could line the ring walls and batter anyone who misbehaved. There was a huge swell of valientes (runners who run before the bulls arrive) as the door opened the valientes pried the gate ajar and that set the stage for the terrible. I remembered trying to hand the “Forales” John Jeronimo’s limp body and him waving his baton in my face. I recalled wanting to punch him square in the jaw and I wished I had. Then I saw a video of another Policía Foral carrying one of the sleepers by himself and stopped blaming them.

But there was more to it all than some mistake at the gateway. The pile already started in the tunnel when the door opened. The Valientes caused it. These uninformed first time runners often cause folly on the course. Many of them are American tourists who’ve done no research or people who are half drunk with no sleep, no knowledge, going on rumor and stupidity.

For the past six years I’ve given two bull-run tours a day for first-time runners, teaching them the basics, warning them on the dangers and giving them practical advice on how to react and plan their run. I can’t help but wonder if enforcing some sort of mandatory certification for first time runners could have at once reduced the number of people on the street that morning and avoided the chaotic pile up all together. I wish I’d had a chance to say something to Pamplona about it. Some way to voice my idea and offer to help.

After over 24 hours on life support Jon Gerónimo miraculously woke up from his coma and began to speak. The bull-run I love dodged a major catastrophe but if nothing changes I fear for the future of Pamplona ’s legendary run.

Noticia sobre las personas que ayudaron a evacuar a John mendoza tras el montón del encierro de Sanfermin 2013 de 13 de julio

Tim Pinks again…

Wow, Bill. No matter how many times I read it, I still shake at the same parts. Enhorabuena, my friend.

The photo above, by the way, shows Bill amongst other runners carrying the seriously injured (yes, actually, dying) Jon Gerónimo Mendoza Ruiz to the bullring infirmary. He’s the one between the two people circled. The article is about how Jon’s father has called his rescuers “angels.” Well, if that was your son, brother or friend, you would, wouldn’t you? Jon Mendoza, by the way, is making what the doctors have called an amazing recovery, and is doing okay, although there will be a couple of months before he completely recovers, I understand.

Oh, and “angels?” I understand completely Jon’s Dad calling them that, but I don’t think Bill for one moment would describe himself thus, but I do know one thing…if I was in trouble, he is exactly the sort of human being I’d want covering my back. He’s one of the good guys.

For those of you who don’t know, Bill Hillman is from Chicago and has been coming to San Fermin since 2005, although he had to miss 2007. He has ran the bulls in Pamplona 59 times and so has only missed a very few runs. If you include runs he has done in Sanse (San Sebastian de los Reyes) and Cuellar then it brings it up to 63 runs.

His debut fictional novel, “The Old Neighborhood” is out next April, to be published by Curbside Splendor, and he happily admits his writing has been influenced by Hemingway. Well, that’s not a bad start start, is it?

Thanks again Bill for the article, it is, in parts, a truly emotional and haunting read. Describing those badly injured people as “sleepers” is something that will stay with me forever.

To end, a video of that day. But as many of us have seen the television and bullring filming of what happened that morning, here’s coverage from a mobile phone taken that morning. Scary stuff.

Ya falta mucho, everyone…but ya falta menos.

Tim Pinks