Walking without bulls
We will get to bulls; but, first, today was the day I started school.
The school is a lovely 15 minute walk down some twisty streets, alongside the bullring, and then through a park beside the old town walls. The start of school was less than wonderfully organized but I didn’t care as I have a classmate! Karine from France has saved me from my little nightmare scenario where I’d be in a class by myself for four weeks.
After school finished at 1:00 I celebrated by tracking down my favourite food – ensalada de queso de cabra – which I handily found in a flagstone-floored cave doubling as a restaurant just down the street from my apartment.
By the way, I am already contemplating starting a whole seperate blog about the stairs, but just assume that every time I mention doing something I’m going down and up those six flights off stairs. So a quick trip home to grab some bags and then heading out to find a full-size supermarket after lunch… well you get the idea. I failed to find a large supermarket near home, but I think that I may have more luck tomorrow near the school. Anyway, it was back home again to do some investigating into my afternoon activity.
All that took me through to my main goal for the day. To walk the Encierro – the route of the running of the bulls in the festival of San Fermin. Now if I had been smart I might have researched the route earlier in the day. I say that because it turned out the first part of the Encierro was pretty much what I walked in reverse on my failed supermarket search, and the second part, well that was my morning walk from home to the bullring. But as Hemingway, who’s really to blame for the whole bull running thing being so iconic, once said “man is not made for defeat”. So I set off to walk the whole thing in order.
To be clear “the whole thing” is 875m and the streets it goes through are pretty but more about bull-running than being picturesque. I’m sure every meter seems like a lifetime when there are huge bulls roaring along, but dodging tourists on a damp August afternoon did not give the full sense of the thing. There are endless videos and pictures to fill in the gaps and I did come away thinking that the Festival de San Fermin looks fabulous. I’m not a convert to the bull running or the bull fights that follow, but the surrounding festival seems joyous.
