Okay, I can tell you all are the kind to always turn first to the climatic end of every novel you pick up; don´t want me to try and maintain the dramatic tension in telling this story in order, so to cut to the chase (literally, ha!),
TODAY I DID RUN with the bulls!
It was quite an ordeal but I couldn´t back down after all this build-up, cd I...?!
I mean it started with a nearly 500 mile drive (one-way) as I had miscalculated how close we were! Went so far I crossed hemispheres (from east to west!)...only got seriously lost once...
But, last night, whoa, Pamplona is like a fullblown mardi gras for 7 hard partying days! More marching bands, amusement parks, fireworks, and ALL night drinking and carousing through the narrow quaint cobbled streets & alleys...
I only had a few beers before retiring to car to try and sleep for a couple hours (unsuccessfully as too cramped and cold)...
up again at 5:30, now in quite obligatory white shirt, red scarf (almost EVERYONE in city wearing this, plus white pants and red kerchief belt too), stumble back to ´él encierro´´, find my place crammed like scared sardines in a tiny square, & moments before 8am, the police stop their blockade and we spread out quickly....
I choose my spot not far away right before a big right hand turn (so i know to keep to the right side avoiding the momentum careening bulls to the left) and we hear the cannon blast, and they´re off!
Adrenaline kicks in and it´s hard to even ´reassemble´what came next...but a wave of runners turned the corner and so I knew to start working my own broken knees...
only about 40 yards and the first bulls were upon us...I moved over the side & hugged a wall and then the worst thing possible happened: 1 bull became separated from the rest, stopped, and while a bunch of macho idiots tried taunting him, turned around and around and even came stepping back towards me a few steps...!
Many around me were screaming and running but i stayed glued against the wall -- about 10 yards away, no more (though there WERE many closer than me) and then the bull picked on one fella & GORED him good right there in front of me! AIYYEEEEE!
Though i was too transfixed to take any photos, I DID take a good picture right afterwards of all the blood across a newspaper this lad left...(he was quickly carried off by bystanders, they have expert surgeons very close by for all these cases!)
yikes, and so how was I to know if ALL the bulls had passed or not yet...¿?
they hadn´t...but the rest passed by less excitingly...!
wow, all over just like that -- i heard this was one of the worst days of injuries they have had for quite some time (another victim was still cordoned off down on the ground earlier on the run when i retraced my route)
and hey, you can catch all the drama here:
www.sanfermin.com/tv
(I think -- it´s replayed on our tv here over and over again every morning)
(look for me in black beret trying to melt into one wall as others run away past me!)
so then there was just the 500 mile drive back to the rest of family,,,,
WHEW!
´nuf sed...?!
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4 comments:
Hola Bruno - Good show! Commenting on Dane's behalf (he isn't of the gmail bent):
"...Yeah...I don't see him either...but not sure if ran on the 11th or the 10th?
He posted that bit at 12:02pm on the 12th and said he ran today...so I can't figure it out....that means he should ran on the 12th. But he also says there was a 500 mile drive back so what f***ing day did he run? I dunno. I don't have a google account so can't post a comment asking him."
Please advise - enquiring minds want to know! :-)
How scary was that!!! Glad you are okay, I'm assuming you are.
Surgeons or not, those were terrible gores.
We watched the video on the san fermin website, we didn't see you!
Freakin' loco!
NO WAY!!!! Too gruesome, too Hemingway, too everything. Glad you're alive, you nutball.
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