July 6, 2019 – We woke up today so excited for the start of the San Fermin Fiesta. It is traditional to wear the typical Pamplonica costume, comprising a white shirt or T-shirt, white skirt or trousers, and the red sash and red kerchief of the fiestas. Of particular importance is the red kerchief, the symbol of the Pamplona fiestas. It is an essential item if you want to fully integrate into the San Fermin atmosphere. Tradition requires you to knot the kerchief around your neck moments after the opening ceremonial rocket has been fired to mark the start of the fiestas. Tradition points to the red color of the kerchief being a symbol of the martyrdom of St Fermin, who was decapitated in the city of Amiens during the persecutions in the 3rd century. During the festivities almost everyone wears the so-called fiestas “uniform”, to create truly eye-catching images in red and white. It is true to say that it is a way of integrating everyone into the fiestas. The very simplicity of this costume has led locals and tourists alike to adopt it, to form a human sea of red and white. Before we came to Spain, I bought our San Fermin Attire to wear for the next two days to celebrate. So, we donned our fiestas “uniform” and headed out to the Old town to participate in the festivities.
The festival of San Fermín is a week-long, historically rooted celebration held annually in June in Pamplona. The celebrations always start at noon on 6 July, when the party starts with the setting off the skyrockets and they continue until midnight, on 14 July. While its most famous event is the encierro, or the running of the bulls, the festival involves many other traditional and folkloric events. It is known locally as Sanfermines and is held in honor of Saint Fermin, the co-patron saint of Navarre and Pamplona’s first bishop. It has become probably the most internationally renowned fiesta in Spain. Over 1,000,000 people come to participate in this festival. However, there is so much more to this festival than just the bull run and fights. As we experience them, I will explain the traditions and meanings of each activity.
We arrived at old town and it was absolutely packed with people dressed exactly as we were. The festivities begin at the city hall, where on the balcony, the mayor set off EL CHUPINAZO (the ceremonial rocket) and the festivities begin. The Plaza Consistorial at city hall was packed with mostly younger people but a few were our age and older. The party had already started with a sea of participants drinking wine, singing traditional songs, shouting, laughing and flinging wine everywhere. Wayne and I decided to go for it and joined in. People were chanting and singing while squirting wine from bota bags, pouring wine over each other’s heads, flinging wine from bottles while people in the balconies above threw buckets of water and wine on the participants below. Every now and then someone would hop on another’s shoulders for a loud traditional song ending with everyone dousing that person with wine. We weren’t in the mix for more than 5 minutes and we were drenched, purple and laughing our asses off. It’s kind of hard to explain. Giant beach balls were flying around everywhere, even a giant blow up banana was getting tossed around in the air, flags were waving, and people were throwing their hats all around the plaza. It was great fun.
We should have excused ourselves from the party at that point because as it got closer to noon, all hell broke loose and then it was just too late to escape the plaza. We were packed in tight like sardines and were not going anywhere. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a bunch of younger (maybe early 20’s) boys came in and wanted to move to the center of the party. That made it even tighter…if that is even possible. Then the crowd started to sway back and forth which became more and more aggressive. A couple of times, I was actually picked up a bit. We were almost knocked down several times, stepped on, sweated on and squeezed. At one point, I was squeezed so hard, and someone’s forearm was across my throat, that I couldn’t breathe. Wayne pushed the guy away and saved me. Additionally, they started draping huge flags over the crowd and we got trapped under the big Basque Country flag for a bit that you can see in some of the videos on YouTube I posted below. Its looks like this:
The heat from the sun and people and the wine everywhere created a super humid environment which was becoming quite uncomfortable if you were short. So, we tried to stay together, move out and get some air along the side of the plaza. We got closer to the side and a man, about our age, pulled me and another older guy off to the side and helped shield us from the crowd and we borrowed a lady’s fan to get some air.
At 12:00 the mayor came onto the balcony of city hall and shouted “Pamploneses, Pamplonesas, Viva San Fermín! Gora San Fermín!”(people of Pamplona, long live San Fermín!) The crowd responded with cries of “Viva!” and “Gora!” and the rocket was launched into the sky. All held up their panuelo (scarf) and tied it on around their necks and then los gaiteros (the bagpipers) came out and began marching through town as the crowd went wild singing and dancing. We followed the pipers in the streets partially for the fun and partially because that’s the only way we could have possibly walked out of the plaza as the entire town marched along and sang. It was awesome. Being packed in there like that was quite a frightening thing for me (Sharon), but at the same time, I am glad we experienced an opening at Pamplona. We had to borrow the video below from the internet from someone in a balcony above. (Hope the link holds out.) While we were in the middle of the masses for most of the day, at this point we thought it best to view the ceremony from a point under the red banner (second from the right) along the yellow building that can sometimes be seen at the top of the video.
It was so crowded in Old Town…. I have NEVER seen a crowd like that… and it took us a couple hours to get out of there. As we were working our way out of Old Town, we encountered many marching bands performing in the streets. There are many clubs “Penas” in Pamplona that celebrate San Fermin together. These clubs meet every day during the festival for partying, having potluck meals together on long tables in the streets and (some members) run with the bulls while other members watch and pray for them. Each club has its own marching band that competes with the others to see who can create the most fun and trail of marchers behind them. So FUN!
By this time we were getting tired and were starving. We walked through a tent that looked like a little store, but they were cooking against one wall. I told Wayne to go get us a beer and I would get the food. He gave up as no one would take his order, (probably because young cute girls wanted a beer too) but I was very, very, persistent and made my way to the front and insisted to be served…ha-ha. There were hunks of meat on this giant rotisserie (it was either goat or pork) and I got us delicious sandwiches. We were dying for some meat and protein so it tasted sooooo good. We grabbed a beer and went back to the room to shower and siesta. I felt like I had been seriously beaten up.
We napped for a bit and then went back over to the fiesta. Everyone was still partying, and it was still very crowded. Apparently, the party goes on literally all night long. We stayed for the 11:45 PM fireworks show and headed home for bed. It is going to be an early day tomorrow as Wayne wants to run with the bulls and we need to get there at 6:30 AM.
What a crazy day!
