It’s not often in life you get an opportunity to experience the extremes of another nations’ culture. Think of an Italian at a 5 day test match, barmy army and all and you’ll get what I mean. But on my recent bog standard ‘Costa…’ holiday in Spain I took the opportunity to go bull running. Not without a great deal trepidation and hand-wringing. Firstly I had to persuade the family (wife, 3 kids) I would be careful, whatever that means at a bull run. Then I had to square my conscience, they don’t actually kill the bull by slow torture do they?, it’s part of their culture etc etc. Then I had to steel myself for a late night, it doesn’t start until 12.30am and finishes around 4.00am (way past my bedtime and I wanted to stay sober so it was a long evening). As we walked up to old town Calpe we decided there were no downsides, even getting gorged would in time become a scar and a terrific story you could dine out on for years, death – a rarity – would become a story for the wife and kids to relay.
The experience was absolutely mind-blowing. 3,000 people (pretty much all Spanish), small kids, mothers, grandmas and granddads, young Spanish lads trying to make a name for themselves and vetran bull runners with the scars to match. Non-existent Health and Safety, no police, marshalls or stewards, one ambulance…! The smallest village fete in the UK would have all this and more. Over 4 hours 6 bulls were let loose into one street, 150 yards long sort of fenced off either side with prison cell cages with bars just wide enough for a relatively slim man to slip through unhindered, and that’s about it. The whole audience just taunts, goads and generally try to wind-up each bull, even the little kids have their toys dangling from the end of poles trying to whack the bull as it goes past. Bottles, glasses, sticks are thrown at the bull, blokes hit them with long sticks and everyone dances about in front of the bull trying to get it to charge. When it does everyone rushes to the nearest cage and jumps through the bars to relative safety, the bull still butts the cage repeatedly (and they’ve got long horns), the bravest few never go into the cages and dance around dodging the bull until it gives up and moves on to easier targets. We started of like wuss’s but by the end of the night high on adrenalin and a Spanish sized brandy we were going for it side by side with the locals (still with an eye on the cage of course). Oh by the way, the final bull was bought out and had fireworks attached to its’ horns, now that made it very very angry and me a little bit sick and ashamed for being there.
We saw a gorging and a few flippings which are unbelievable to witness live.
I’ve surfed some pretty big waves, walked about Moss Side at the wrong time of night, had some running battles with various football hooligans over the years, but the adrenalin rush, fear, excitement, disgust of your first bull run tops them all.
As an experience of culture there’s nothing so un-British.
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