"Thats a lot of Bull......!"

“That’s a lot of Bull…...!”

The Festival of San Fermin is well underway in Pamplona, (the annual “Running of the Bulls”) with 1 million visitors expected to attend this year.

The streets are bursting with thousands of ANZACS and American adventurers (a la Ernest Hemmingway), with every man and his dog wanting to stand in the way of 6 charging Bulls just for the fun of it! You have to ask yourself “is this is some kind of mass Death wish?”, until you realise they have (for the most part) had a little more “Dutch Courage” than this Blogger would advise.

I have to admit they do look quite resplendent in their Red Kerchiefs and white running tracksuits all listening intently for the blast of the horn which signals that the Bulls have been released from their pens.
A friend of mine recounts this tale of high dudgeon at the “Running of the Bulls” last year…


As the horn intones the opening of the pens, a way – too – close – for - comfort sound of pounding bovine hooves can be distinctly heard on the cobbled streets – seemingly heading my way?

Adrenalin begins to course through my body as half a ton of charging Bull – with VERY sharp horns – seems to have taken a particular dislike to me, and, as the effects of too much (excellent) Cider wears of in an instant, it occurs that, just maybe, this was not the best decision I ever made, in what could be, a painfully foreshortened life….

Looking at the narrow streets about me, every exit was crowded with equally recovered alcoholics. The entire assembly then lurched forwards in a parody of a “Mexican Wave” and I got carried along with it.

Now, it is true that some people will train all year to make the 825 metre sprint from Bull – pen to Bull – Ring: lean, fit, super – athletic, running machines. Unfortunately, I was not amongst their number.

As the bulls neared there was a great “parting of the waves” to let them get through the centre of the now panicking masses and I saw my opportunity. There was an unoccupied lamppost just within arms reach and I made a desperate lunge for it.

I shinnied up it like a rat up a drainpipe just as the nearest Bull had decided I was the target of his anger and horn met iron causing the post to shake alarmingly. It held though, and the gouges from the impact were just centimetres from where my out of shape buttocks had been a scant second ago.
                                                                             
I survived without a scratch – a young runner (27yrs), Daniel Jimeno Romero, was not so fortunate and was killed that same year…..

Photo credit: http://www.heralddeparis.com/running-with-the-bulls-in-pamplona/44253