Its 7.30 am and I'm already hot.
It’s my birthday and I’m grumpy. I’ve just finished my first year at college and
I’m hitchhiking through Europe with Kim, my American roommate. Now Kim has the annoying habit of
falling in love with the wrong person, at the wrong time, and it’s happened
again!
I’m miserable as I trail behind
her and ‘lover boy, Carlos’ looking for a cheap hostel. We walk up steep cobbled streets,
carrying our heavy rucksacks. We were supposed to be heading to the
sea, to San Sebastian. I’ve been
dreaming of white sands, blue sea and food! But here I am in a small, hot Spanish town I’ve never
heard of following the lustful Kim.
I notice it’s unusually crowded and
everyone seems to be rushing. Very
strange, especially in Spain at this time of morning. But I’m too sulky
to pay much attention. I’m so busy
muttering my resentments that I’m shocked when a dark, wiry haired guy shoots
out of a doorway calling out “Carlos, Amigo! Where you been eh?”
He has a wine glass in one hand
and a bleary smile welcomes us all.
Up the narrow stairs we go, into a small room crowded with people. I‘ve hardly put my rucksack down when
someone thrusts a glass of red wine in my hand. As I turn to say hello, I hear the sound of a gun, a great
roar and I’m swept stumbling out onto the verandah.
I gasp, as I feel myself being
crushed against the railings. I
hear shouting, “Toro, Toro, Toro! Around
the corner appear the noses of bulls dripping with snot. Men dressed in white shirts and red
kerchiefs are in amongst them. It’s
a blur of white and red. Suddenly
one of the men stumbles, his friend stops, his hand stretches out. We all see the bull behind tossing its head;
there is a groan and then frantic screaming. “Here! Here! We screech.
The men seem to run straight at
the wall beneath us, their eyes bulge, their arms stretch out to us. We all reach down, scrabbling to catch
them. I feel their hot sweaty
hands slipping in mine. I’m
crushed from behind as arms reach over me to grab their shirts. I feel as if my arms will be pulled out
of my sockets. It’s unbearable… and then its over! There they are, over the verandah Panting!
Laughing! Boastful! Adrenaline flowing in all of us, a great cheer goes
up! Wine flagons appear and the
celebrations begin... and that's how I celebrated my 19th
birthday, over forty years ago, at the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona!
By the next day Kim’s passionate
love affair was over and so we left. Its only now, all these years later that I read about
what actually happened that day, and I can really appreciate how lucky we and those
guys were.
Extract
July, 1969
Hilario PARDO SIMÓN
(45
años, Murchante, Navarra)
Alcanzado en la Cuesta de Sto. Domingo
Astado de
Salvador Guardiola Fantoni:
"Reprochado"
"The bull-run turned
dangerous from the first moment as one of the bulls unexpectedly charged
forward and outpaced the rest of the pack and was at the heels of the runners
who were struggling to get away from it. Many of them pinned themselves against
the long wall of the Military Hospital or, having lost their balance, lay
stretched-out immobile on the pavement where they had fallen.
Many of the
runners turned to the right where there was some space available at the slope
leading towards the Museum of Navarra.
"Reprochado" - for that was
the name of the bull - followed those runners to the right and gored one,
Gregorio Z.J., in the stomach with a tremendous butt of its horns. This runner
would eventually recover from his wound, but a second runner was then
immediately charged by the bull and this time it was a fatal charge for the
runner had fallen to the ground - a man called Hilario Pardo- and he was caught
in a fatal zig-zag attack where the bull swung first with his right horn and
followed up with a blow from his left horn, which left the corpse gushing blood
all over the pavement
The subsequent photos revealed that the wounded man
received the first goring and that the mortal victim was then attacked -
contrary to what the crowd thought at the time where they thought the dead man
had been attacked first."
Gruesome!
