Bull Run.
In Bayonne, a pretty little town just round the corner from the surf frenzy of Anglet, they have a fete every summer. It's called, imaginatively, Fete de Bayonne.
Most, if not all, Basque towns and villages have a fete every year. When I say fete, put out of your mind images of an English fete; all cucumber sandwiches and milky tea. A Basque fete could be more accurately described as an organised riot. The fete lasts for 5 days and 5 nights, and does not stop. It's 120 hours of absolute non-stop partying, with bands and fireworks going off and the streets are rammed. Imagine the busiest nightclub you've ever visited, that one where it was so full you couldn't move, and you were paranoid that a fire might break out? Well, every street in Bayonne is like that during the fete.
For 5 days and 5 nights. Non-stop.
The Basques had the notion of being 24-hour-party-people down and wired before Ibiza even had electricity.You party until the early hours, fueled by nothing but Sangria, and then every morning brass bands patrol the streets making enough noise to get you up and get you back out there. You don't sleep, and for weeks after the fete is over, you suffer from post-traumatic stress. It's great.
The most famous of the fetes is the one at Pamplona in Spain. It's famous of course because Hemmingway wrote about it, and they have the bonkers idea of getting chased by bulls through the streets each morning.
Bayonne also has a bull event. It's slightly different to the Pamplona version, and it's certainly a lot less well known. In Pamplona, there is a set route that the bulls run along to the bull ring. Everyone lines up and legs it along this route, and the bulls chase them. It's lots of fun (apparently) and usually ends up with an aussie or two getting gored. Pamplona seems to be an Aussie magnet. Apparently if you're Australian visiting Europe, you get given a list of places you have to go and see when you leave Australia, and they won't let you back into the country unless you tick them all off. Thats why Earls Court, Newquay and Pamplona are always stuffed full of them; those places are right at the top of the list. It's also compulsory for them to work in at least one pub. They don't want to be there, it's just in the rules. Thats why you bump into Aussies who've been in the UK for 10 years. They want to go home desperately, and that's why they whinge about the UK all the time. But they can't because they haven't finished their list yet. And that's true.
But I'm getting off the subject.
The bull run in Bayonne isn't a run as such. What they do is fence off a section of the town around a square, complete with shops and bars and pubs. Then they let a bull out into this fenced off area. A very pissed off bull.
The bull then chases everybody, and it's very very scary. A couple of years ago a bull had actually blundered into one of the bars, and totally wrecked the place. The story is everyone dived over the bar, but noone spilt a drop of their drinks as the bull tore the place apart.
Barbie lives in Bayonne. Right in the middle. This summer he had quite a few guests for the fete which he very generously put up with. There was me, Barbie, Gary, Tom, Nicky, Tim, Ian and Ben (AKA The Groms), Unlucky Rob and Nat. We talked about the bull run. Nervously. We could hear the cannon go off to announce that another bull had been let out. We were excited by the idea, but didn't really want to go home in a box.
Then Gary's Bar opened. Gary made up a customised drink for each person. 2 Litres each. No-one but Gary knew what was in each one, but the rumour was most of them contained a least a half-litre of Manzana, plus some Espresso topped off with Vodka. Each had a provocative name, like 'Unlucky Labia' or 'Icey Cheeky'. After some consumption of our evil brews, the bull run started to sound less like a near-death experience, and more like a jolly barrel of laughs, healthily romping around with a big cow.
Bayonne also gets inventive with it's bull run. They have a special one on at night. In the dark. We were up for that one.
We walked down to the fenced off area, making nervous jokes about who was going to tell The Grom's parents that they wouldn't be coming home. Any individual reluctance to take part was masked now by everybody elses apparent enthusiasm for the idea, and the copious amounts of Gary's Brew that we'd downed.
We got to the fence. The largest part of the fenced off area is by the town wall, creating an almost natural amphitheater, allowing people to watch the bull go mental on the other side of the fence while they themselves stayed in complete safety. They even had a commentator, making jokes about the carnage occurring a few metres away. We got to the gate. A big sign in 3 languages warned us of the fact that there are 'cows' loose on the other side. We each took another swig of Gary's potion and went to go through.
They wouldn't let us in. You had to get a ticket first. You had to PAY to get chased by a psychotic fighting bull in the dark. We coughed up the necessary euros for a ticket, made lame jokes about the 'don't sue us if you get killed' blurb on the back, and went in.
On the other side of the fence, it looked no different to the safe side. There were people standing around, drinking in the bars, and chatting. It all seemed normal. But there was a difference in the atmosphere. You knew that somewhere, somewhere among all those people was a bull the size of a small car, that could run at 40mph and weighed close to a ton. It was dark, and the bull was black. And there was nothing between it and you. And that that bull was very very pissed off. The ground was covered in a inch or so of sand, to 'make things a bit fairer for the bull'. Bull hooves can't grip on tarmac; they slip, so the sand was there to stop it sliding about.
We were standing about, wondering what was about to happen when we suddenly became aware of a mass of people running towards us. In the time it takes for the thought 'they're-running-becasuse-there-is -a-bull-coming' to pass through your brain, there it was. A huge black evil looking bull running towards us flat-out, head down, horns pointing and it was going as fast as fuck, with nothing between it and us.
We ran. In different directions. Not looking back, not even to check if it was still behind us. That thing was HUGE and I at least wanted to be nowhere near it. I ran until I reached a spot where people were still standing about nonchalantly, and figured I was safe. Well, safer. I was SCARED.
I really wanted to leave the bull zone then. But something kept me there. My camera.
I wanted a picture of the bull.
A horn went, to indicate the bull was safely out of the ring. How they got the thing out, I'd no idea, but at least now I genuinely was safe. I wandered about a bit, and bumped into Barbie. He had local knowledge, living in Bayonne, so I decided to follow his lead. They were preparing to release another bull into the square, and there was some activity around the gate where it would be released. People were joining arms, hokey-cokey style, on each side of the gate to form a human corridor. Towards the end of the corridor, people were LYING DOWN and throwing handfuls of sand into the air.
"Stu, have they gone completely mental? What are they doing?"
Barbie explained that the idea was when the bull was released, it wouldn't see the corridor as being made of people, and would just run down the middle. This was fine as long as noone cracked and broke the corridor. If that happened, the bull would suddenly realise what was happening, and chase whoever it was who broke the chain. If you were really hardcore, you could lie down and throw sand to produce the same effect. Given that bit of information, the safest place to be would seem to be right next to the gate where the bull came out. It would also give the chance to take a good photo of the bull.
The cannon went off, the gate came down, and the bull came out, kicking and snorting. I was ready with my camera.
Then the second person in the human corridor cracked. The line broke 6 ft from me and Stuart. The bull, fresh and frenzied, was right next to us, wild eyed and kicking. I forgot all about photography.
The words 'fucking hell' were uttered in several different languages around us, and we all scattered. Stuart and I found ourselves stuck in something like a dead end with a load of people, with no way back in to the main arena. The bull was between us and safety, and all we and the 50 or so people around us had for cover was a big tree. The bull paused, pawing the ground, trying to decide whether to come after us or to leg it back into the main square. The 50 of us all tried to hide behind the same tree.
The bull looked left and right, and then made up it's mind. It came for us.
Everybody tried to get behind the tree. A big triangle of humanity formed as everyone tried to keep the tree between themselves and the bull. The bull circled the tree, and the human triangle shuffled round like the hands of a clock. Everyone was bunched up, hands on the shoulders of the person in front, squashed up against the tree, straining their necks to keep one eye on what the bull was doing. There was nervous laughter. If the bull moved left, we all moved right. The bull moved back and so did we. Someone cracked under the strain and made a run for it, and the bull locked on to him and gave chase. The rest of us were safe thanks to his sacrifice.
Me and Stuart decided that that was close enough, and we were getting out of there. We skirted around close to the bars, full of drinkers, when we suddenly became aware of people running past us.
'Oh fuck, here it comes again...'
We ducked into a packed bar, pushing people out of the way. The bull thundered past behind us at full speed and ran straight into some poor woman who hadn't moved fast enough. She got tossed into the air, and landed hard on the curb, badly hurt. Some brave basque locals, used to this sort of thing, deliberately attracted the bull so she could be attended to, and the medics ran to the scene. The commentator was laughing as he described what had happened. Ho Ho Ho.
Gary had arrived next to us, out of breath.
'What happened to you?' we asked.
'Oh, I've been chasing the bull. The bastard kicked me.'
'You've been doing WHAT?'
Gary had applied logic to the situation, and had decided that the safest place to be was behind the bull. Therefore, the safest thing to do was to chase the bull. He told us that some of the people in the area were mental, trying to wrestle with the bull, and intentionally trying to get the bull to chase them. Gary had got a bit too close, and got booted in the calf. He'd had enough too and we all headed back to gate and safety.
We got outside and found Georgie and Mim, two English girls who also live in Bayonne. They both had that faintly amused expression that girls wear when men do something idiotic. Everyone else was out too, talking too-quickly about the narrow escapes they'd just had. We'd all had a nice dose of adrenaline flowing though our veins, and it was great.
But I'm not doing it again.
By Jon.
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