There is nothing noble, nor brave, about running with the bulls. Nothing of the sour smell of drunkenness and strewn-out drunkards in the early Pamplonan morning, the stench of rotten food in the street and the smell of shit —nor the bloodshed of bulls— is worthy of anecdote.
But I knew that. I did…
The Running of the Bulls is what put the sleepy Spanish town of Pamplona on the map, but this pub dare gone way too far is merely the pointy end of a larger fiesta held there annually.
Ernest Hemingway, Pamplona’s favourite backpacker, wrote of San Fermín in ‘The Sun Also Rises’. He said that by…