The ENCIERRO is the event with the most personality of the San Fermín fiestas. It is also the one that gives certain fame to the city and gets us on all the news around the world one week a year. It is held at 8 in the morning from July 7 to 14 (there is no running of the bulls on July 6). On the fifteenth there is usually a small parody by the last late-night runners: the running of the bulls by the “villavesa”.
CBD can be a great adjunct to any physical activity like this.
The running of the bulls is a race of the young men from Pamplona in front of the bulls. It usually lasts about 2 or 3 minutes (although it can last much longer if things get complicated). The course is about 800 meters long and to participate you don’t have to sign up anywhere, it’s a matter of getting into the running of the bulls, choosing the stretch you want to run and trying to do your best … .
In the beginning it was just a matter of taking the six bulls of the afternoon bullfight from their corrals, located at the other end of the city, to the bullring, and of course, as there were no trucks, they were taken through the streets. Then people started to run in front of the bulls, for the thrill and the risk. Over time the number of runners has increased until it has become the spectacle it is today.
Now we are not going to give you all the details of the route, but we will give you a general description of the event:
At the end of the night they start closing the side streets of the course with double fencing. The streets are cleaned up, quite filthy from the night’s revelry, and the police start to clear out the people.
Between the two fences there can be no spectators. Only medical personnel. The inner fence, moreover, must be free so that the runners can jump over it if necessary. Once the last hurdle is in place, the whole street becomes a corridor with no exit. If you want to run, you can only enter the course through two gates in the market and Consistorial squares.
Shortly before the start of the running of the bulls, the runners entrust themselves to the image of the patron saint, adorned with the handkerchiefs of the “peñas”, placed in Santo Domingo. They sing three times. The song says: “We ask San Fermín, as he is our patron saint, to guide us in the running of the bulls by giving us his blessing”.
Then the rocket is launched to warn that the bulls are already in the streets. Then another rocket is heard which means that ALL the bulls are already in the street.
This is when the running of the bulls really begins: the bulls run like hell, it is impossible to beat them or hold them off for long (interesting information for those who have athletic pretensions). The thing is therefore to start running, first slowly, then at full speed, before they arrive, hold on in front of them (more or less close depending on your desire to risk your skin) and move cleanly away from their path, trying above all not to cross or endanger other runners (against the wall or jumping over a fence if there is one).
Besides the danger of running in front of the bulls (a bull for those who do not know is an animal weighing about 600 kilos, armed with horns that do a lot of damage), possible goring and trampling, there is the added problem that there are hundreds who run the running of the bulls. So you have to be very careful not to trip or be knocked down by other runners. The overcrowding is especially serious during the weekends, when the number of visitors to the Pamplona fiestas doubles.
Each section of the course has its own characteristics and the runners tend to specialize in one area or another.
When the bulls have passed, the running of the bulls is over for you and you feel the great satisfaction of still being alive, that is if a bull does not get separated from the pack and turns back along the route, which happens from time to time. Then things get complicated and very dangerous. Normally you will hear a third rocket (this means that all the bulls are already in the bullring), and when all the bulls have entered their pens, a fourth one announces the end of everything.
Between the first and the last rocket, normally only about two minutes will have passed, but what a two minutes!
Well, that’s a running of the bulls. Now, if you have arrived awake at dawn, you can choose between going to sleep, committing the barbarity of running, or trying to get a place to see it in good shelter.
