Country Article / Postcards

TASTING THE HORN

Date: 04/17/2007

Dear International Living Reader,

Every year from July 6 to 14, the Spanish city of Pamplona hosts its San Fermin festival, the huge street party made famous by Hemingway. The highlight is the daily encierro--the running of the bulls.

People wearing traditional runner's dress--whites with a red scarf and sash--drift into the square early morning to gather under the statue of San Fermin, a few yards up the street from the bull pens. "San Fermin," they sing, "we ask you, our patron saint, to guide us in the encierro and give us your blessing." Since 1924, the bulls have killed 13 people, gored more than 900, and injured thousands. To make sure the saint gets the message, the runners repeat the supplication twice.

At 8.00 a.m., the warning rocket goes off and the corrals are thrown open. Seven fighting bulls explode out of the gates.

The bulls have a top-heavy weight of 1,000 pounds or more; often, they slide on uneven cobblestones slick with dew. When they fall, they collide with runners or other bulls, setting off a chain reaction. Confused and disorientated, they clamber to their feet again but charge off in the wrong direction. Runners have nightmares about confronting lone bulls, cut off from the herd, eager to try out their horns.

Despite the risks, the number of runners increases every year. Organizers claim that many novices can be a threat to others as well as themselves. "They run after drinking all night and without any sleep. They ignore the safety announcements over the loudspeakers," claimed one official. (Sample: "If you fall and see a bull near you, don't get up. Cover your head and neck with your hands, lie completely still.")

Apart from a short-lived adrenaline rush, what's the attraction? Steve, from Ohio, is a veteran who has run more than 50 times in the last decade. He has "tasted the horn"--a quaint expression denoting piercing of the flesh.

"You're running well," he says, gazing dreamily into space. "There aren't too many people in front. You let the herd catch up with you. You run alongside for maybe a hundred yards--better still, squeeze in between the animals, if you can.

"Those moments when you're right up there with the bulls, pacing them, smelling them, hearing the clatter of their hooves on the cobblestones and watching those horns thrusting up and down right next to you--that's what the encierro is all about. It's an incredible feeling."

Peter Dunkley
for International Living