The streets of old town Pamplona blurred with red and white and brown. When we neared the street of our pension, I thought Mary and I had been transported back to the piss, shit, and puke streets of Mardi Gras from seven years ago, a trip we loved for the experience, but one we decided to never return to. At 5 pm on the 10th of July, it smelled as if we had. The square was covered in vomit, broken bottles, and drunks. I have to admit, I was a little turned off on the Fiesta de San Fermin. You with me? Puke and piss aren’t the best smells to rise off the ground in near 100 degree weather. But we were there, we had our keys, and within minutes had changed into our all white outfits and bought some red sashes to drape off our waists.
We bought beers. We walked the main square. We saw so many more drunks passed out on the grass. We were still turned way the hell off by the scene that lay all sticky and smelly out in front of us. One guy nearly puked on my shoes and one lady did her best to hold up the side of a bar by herself. We found the Bourbon Street of Running with the Bulls. So in the late afternoon heat we bought bocadillos and big beers to numb our disappointment.
We sat down on a bench in the square. A little old man in white and red sat next to us. Mary asked if he lived in Pamplona, and he never stopped talking after that. The tiny old men told us about his experience of the last 43 years of the running of the bulls. He took us from the square down the old streets of the city. He sung the traditional San Fermin song while telling us about the path of the bulls. We followed the little man down the long hill to the bull coral. He talked the whole way – I translated about 40 percent of it, but he continued to talk and gesture and smile.
With kisses and hugs, he said goodbye, and immediately, our view of the festival changed. We walked back up the long street and away from the main square. In this square, we found a completely different festival filled with families and dancing and children. We made our wine and Coke concoction in an empty water bottle. We danced in the square. I spun my wife to the music of the festival and we laughed.
