The Big Walk

Long Live San Fermin! - Day 39

We lie in as long as we can, until Maribel wakes everyone to come and watch the first encierro on her television. There’s an absolute throng of people all along the half mile of narrow city streets; it seems impossible that the bulls will even be able to get through. When the bulls are released and plough through the crowd it’s an incredible spectacle. Nearly everyone dives for the doorways and presumed safety towards the sides of the street, but there’s not enough room, particularly when the bulls skid round the tight corners, and at least one person looks to have been badly trampled. One brave Spaniard runs right in front of the horns for a hundred yards or more, before he is pulled away at the last moment by another runner. Maribel approves of this and is cheering and shouting out – afterwards, she says it was a good run. We hope to see tomorrow’s encierro for real – but I now know I dare not take part!

A short walk through parkland and past the pentagonal citadel walls that enclose central Pamplona, and we’re there. We call at one of hundreds of stalls to buy the red scarf and white t-shirt – no longer will we be the odd ones out - and plunge through the crowds. We hope to party until tomorrow morning, sleeping on the streets if need be, so there’s nothing for it but to join a huge queue for a left luggage office. In front of us, three young Californian backpackers keep me awake with their conversation, two hours of incessant, imaginative bull-shitting on their travel experiences. It makes me glad that we have our trek to provide a sense of purpose rather than being on the standard world backpackers tour. I can see we’d be too old for it and too interested in seeing the places themselves rather than in impressing our mates or trying to get laid.

Whilst we are waiting the official procession, with its ornately decorated bust of San Fermin carried aloft, passes through a corner of the square. It halts whilst a lone female vocalist addresses it in haunting song. This procession has been carried out on the 7^th July for at least seven hundred years. Once we’re rid of the bags, we battle through the streets to the cathedral in time to see the procession again for the ceremony outside the cathedral called the atrio, buying a bottle of cava en route. As I open it the flying cork nearly takes my eye out and we begin drinking as the parade approaches. Eight enormous giant figures, four metre high wooden structures with faces of made of painted paper mache, dressed in elegant clothing hiding their carriers below, lead the way. There are four pairs of Kings and Queens, representing Europe, America, Asia and Africa (poor Australia has never been added). Also with old paper mache faces are the five cabezudos or councillors, and the six kilikis, villains of history such as Napolean who carry sponge balls on wooden sticks with which they attack any children (or adults) who cross their path. All line up in two rows, and when the cathedral bells ring out the bands begin to play and the giants dance. There are also the zaldikos, half man, half horse, who also run around attacking children. Some kids are screaming with laughter as they are bashed over their heads, others burst into tears and have to be hugged by their attackers afterwards. One proud lad had his own mask and sponge stick and was chasing after all his mates.

As the parade moves away we venture round the streets, and our afternoon is filled with street-performers, jugglers, folk groups, and occasional kiliki or zaldiko attacks. The atmosphere is absolutely electric. Seemingly everywhere are the peñas, local brass bands with deafening drummers who charge around the streets, each with their own bands of followers adding to the anarchy. We have to settle down for a while, drinking our second bottle of bubbly as we listen to a great pop band on stage. In the next street, there’s traditional Basque dancing – it sounds like Medieval court music and the dances involve holding your arms motionless in the air whilst your legs go wild. It’s pretty impossible to do it from watching but hundreds of locals are on the move. The tempo is building all the time, and at ten o’clock the ‘fire bull’ is let loose. A man wearing a wooden frame in the shape of a bull runs through the streets at full pelt. The frame is covered in whirring, sparking Catherine wheels whilst rockets fire off the head in all directions. He runs past us and is lost in the crowd in seconds.

By now we’ve opened our third bottle of bubbly (this may sound excessive but it really was the cheapest drink!) and headed to the citadel walls for the fireworks display. I always love fireworks but this display was the most spectacular I’ve seen, completely spellbinding as half the sky was lit in blinding explosions of colour. Some combinations are even arranged to draw giant, multicoloured smiling faces in the air, whilst hundreds of rockets shot up, exploded and fell in wonderful colours and when half way down reversed and flew up once more. I’ve seen nothing like it. It’s midnight, and it feels like things are only just beginning…..