When I was in Madrid I decided to go to Pamplona for 1 night to experience the festival San Fermin aka the Pamplona Bull Run. I knew it was going to be a great weekend, but I never thought it would ever be as eventful as it was!
I embarked on a 5 hour bus journey down to Pamplona very early on the Saturday morning. The journey was actually pretty chilled, and went by a lot quicker than I expected. But as soon as I arrived in Pamplona, I was feeling out of place, silly and very embarrassed. When I arrived I realised that I was wearing completely the wrong outfit. The whole flipping city was wearing white tops, white shorts and red scarves round their necks, and I turn up in a full length black jumpsuit. Typical Giselle getting herself into awkward situations.
I met up with some friends from Madrid and we got drunk Spanish style in the street. We were all in high spirits, but as it approached the early hours of the morning we all started to lag. We didn't have a hostel to stay in as they had all been booked up months in advance, so we had to stay awake until 8.30am on the Sunday to watch the bull run. The boys decided to do the run, whilst the girls waited in the Bull Ring to watch the run on the big screens. The bull run only lasts a couple of minutes, and then the bulls and the men enter the ring. The Bull Ring was completely packed and holds nearly 20,000 people. As you can imagine the atmosphere was insane! After the big bulls left the ring, the next event involved baby bulls entering the ring so the participants of the bull run can 'play' with them. I really didn't enjoy this part. These poor bulls are let out into the ring with hundreds of drunk men prodding them, slapping them and generally winding them up. Obviously the bulls react, and I witnessed many males thrown into the air and trampled on. One of the guys that I was with jokingly smacked the baby bull on the bottom, which resulted in a horn going through his mouth. Not a pretty sight. Pretty damn scary as well. Multiple stitches later he was left with a very swollen mouth and couldn't eat properly for a couple of weeks.
I told you it was eventful! Here are some photos which I took during my 24 hours in Pamplona...
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