We are in Spain again! having flown into Bilbao airport yesterday night and checked into our lovely pension house "Loinaz", we met up with Eileen & Belen ('Bexie') for lunch at 12 at "La Fuego Nero" for pinxtos (the Basque region version of tapas). The pinxtos is simply mind-blowing!! Delicate parcels of finely prepared food using the local fresh produce. Loved it more than the tapas we had in Barcelona and even better than Bodega! The great thing about it was you can try so many different dishes as they came in canapé sizes. Pretty much everything we had was very very delicious! We are in food heaven....

We then caught the 3:15pm bus to Pamplona for the San Fermin ('Running of the Bulls') festival. As we got to Pamplona, all we could see was a sea of red and white - people dressed up in all white outfits with a red scarf around their necks and red sash around the waist. Bring on the start of the festivities!

We managed to secure tickets for the bull fight due to commence at 6:30pm for €66 (mid-range tickets, but were great seats in the third row). The atmosphere in the arena was absolutely crazy s***! There were 2 sections of the stands where it was all crazy fans dancing, singing, drumming, drinking and spraying sangria (from water guns). The spaniards sure know how to have a party!

There were a total of 6 bulls that came out, 1 by 1, and there were about 5-7 secondary matadors (with pink capes) who teased and provoked the bull. Then cavalry men on 2 armoured horses would come out with long spears, spearing the bull at the nape of his head. Blood would gush out from the wound but the bull would still be teased and continue running amongst the matadors. The primary matador (with the red cape) would then come out and have a one-on-one 'dance'/teaser session with the bull, provoking it constantly with the red cape and showing off his fancy movements. The secondary matadors would then each take turns to stab mini spears into the wound of the bull, further weakening it. It was quite a gory and disturbing sight at first, but it was definitely an extremely unique showcase. I found it extremely entertaining though!
The 6 bulls that were part of the fight were the same bulls that were part of the bull run this morning. The reason why they are killed in the bull fight is because the bulls learn to recognize the red colour of the capes, so they have to be killed to protect the safety of the matadors.

The best matador of the entire performance was definitely some guy called Ruben. He was quite fancy in his teasing of the bulls.

The whole bull fight performance lasted for a full 2 hours and at the end of it alot of the crowd jumped the barrier to the bull arena. We also did the same thing....then we got attacked by some guys with sangria guns. It was stale sangria too!...Andie got most of it, getting quite soaked on the upper half of her body. Although my white shirt got pretty stained, it was all part of the festivities!! (all the other young people we saw on the streets were stained with sangria too).

We then had to wait nearly 12 hours before the commencement of the bull run at 8am the next morning! We roamed slowly around the streets, finding an Italian place for a drawn out 3 hours dinner. We then roamed the streets some more, witnessing alot of drunkenness and pissing (from guys and a girl) on the streets where the bars and pubs are. Alot of different festivities were going on all through the night, and what I liked about the San Fermin festival was the fact that families, youths and older people joined in the celebrations...although we did notice alot of trashed and rowdy Aussies and Americans in the crowd.

The evening was absolutely freezing, probably only around 11-15 degrees (we obviously didn't bring appropriate clothes for the weather) and as we found a bench to camp out (at the starting line of the bull race) at 4:30am. We gradually turned into icicles. I would've preferred to be in the bull ring to watch the spectacle (that's where the bulls finish the race and the bulls are lasooed), but Bexie wanted to watch the race from the street.

I'm not sure how we managed to survive the 3.5 hours freezing in the cold, but by the time it was 8am for the start of the bull race, excitement of the crowd and the runners were running high!

There were apparently >2,000 runners participating in the bull run, and the entire group was staggered into about 3 smaller groups, with a small chant cried out before they started running.
The bravest (idiots?) were the last batch, being closest to the horns of the running bulls.

It was a very surreal and exciting experience...the anticipation before the horn indicating the start of the bull run was crazy. We were absolutely squished at this stage by other people trying to also see the action. As we heard the horn and the 6 bulls running past us, everyone was screaming their excitement, us included. Although we had to wait 3.5 hours for something that lasted only about 5 mins, it was worth it!! ...next time I'll probably wait for the bulls in the bull ring though, where there's a performance on capturing the bulls too.

We then waited for the 9:45am bus to San Sebastian. Man, that was a hectic experience too -- Seemed like they oversold bus tickets to the hoards of people trying to leave Pamplona and bus drivers weren't even checking tickets anymore. Eileen showed true Asian style by shoving her way through the crowd to the front..so we managed to get on!