The Big Walk

The Running of the Bulls – Day 40

Beyond the walls a massive funfair has been set up. We wonder round the stomach-churning rides before opting for the big wheel – which still proves terrifying for Helen. We run round after a peña band for a while before heading to another park. There’s a giant stage and music but we’re hungry enough to instead devour what looks like a very dodgy paella from a street stall. The fiesta rolls on but the buzz is beginning to desert us as exhaustion begins to take hold – we’re utterly knackered. We try to sleep on a park bench, before deciding that the ‘soft’ concrete in a children’s play area will be more comfortable. I can’t sleep a wink, I’m too scared of being robbed, not to mention the discomfort. We head onto another perch on some steps in the centre but the never ending bar activity and a guy on the next step vomiting up his entire fiesta consumption are no improvement.

Finally we take up a prime position from which we’ll be able to watch the bull run – in three hours time. After only another half an hour our vantage point is crammed full of spectators, together with the balconies on all the buildings, whilst in the street just below the brave or foolish are gathering. They arrive loud and raucous but as time passes begin to look more nervous, sobering up rapidly as danger time draws near. The tension builds until with five minutes left the crowd turn to face towards the bulls, and begin chanting and waving their newspapers, their nerve at last returning with the solidarity in numbers. An explosion is heard as a rocket flies into the air – the bulls have been released. Everyone turns to run, or to cram into the sides of the road, but the six bulls are here in an instant, menacing and black, with huge horns. They are running together as a pack and several people take glancing blows from their sides but they are past in just a second, followed by a group of steers with bells ringing out. In no time at all the adrenaline has gone; replaced by profound relief, as the runners dust themselves down looking dazed. Only later do we learn that further along the today’s run six people are hospitalised, three being gored and seriously injured. Since record-keeping began in 1924, thirteen people have been killed.

We go to collect our bags ready to move on, as the rubbish-strewn streets are swept and another day of the fiesta begins. We leave the centre past a tall statue of St. Francis: even the Saint is now adorned with the red scarf tied round his neck. Once in the anonymous suburbs we stop for a civilised breakfast to kick-start our return to reality. There’s a hostel beyond the edge of the city but it’s too early to be open, and some energy is coming back into our limbs with the warming sun – in spite of twenty seven hours without sleep (and counting). A twenty kilometre walk passes in a trance; I remember only the heat and regretting eating the dodgy paella from the stall last night.

We stumble into the pilgrim hostel at Larrasoaña, only to be taken on an agonising tour of the facilities by the warden. He goes through everything with ridiculous thoroughness. “These are the taps, this one’s hot, this one’s cold…. That’s a toilet, which flushes like this.” Only when another pilgrim arrives do we escape, and crash out on the mattresses on the floor for a couple of hours.

When we wake, our host completes the tour by showing us his gallery, filled with photos and watercolour paintings by pilgrims, and every sort of camino memorabilia. He’s a true eccentric; so obsessed by the pilgrimage that he’s completed it seven times and even changed his name to Santiago. In several hostels on the route we’ve seen signed photos of a bearded man dressed in full medieval pilgrim costume, draped in scallop shells – there’s another of them here. As I glance at it I realise – it’s the warden with a pilgrimage-grown beard.

When we wonder outside we find that Larrasoaña is a picturesque village, but it’s best feature is a bar serving the meal I’d dreamed of – a huge, refreshing salad followed by steak and chips, after which we again leave the land of the living for the soundest dormitory sleep ever.