The Sitting-Down-Near the Bulls

Hola,
H and are are alive and more or less well having been delivered from travel purgatory and Los Sanfermines. It´s quite a tale how we managed to get here in Bilbao since my last post from somewhere like nowhere. After our train to Pamplona we eventually managed to get tickets to Irun at the Spanish/French Border, and then to Vittoria where we had reserved a hostel via the internet. Our luck turned with the procuring of those tickets as a our hostel was easily located, near the train station, and beautifully appointed. We had a room and bathroom to ourselves for about 30 USD a piece. After dropping our bags and cleaning up, we hopped a regional train to Pamplona for the Running of The Bulls. We arrived around 8pm on July 6th, the first day of the festival, to a war zone. Everywhere were piles of grabage, prostrate bodies, puddles of wine, and wine soaked mud. The streets were wet with urine and booze. H and I each bought the traditional red neckerchief, and began to explore feeling like anthropologists instead of party goers. The place was the party of parties, which is a bit too much party for us apparently. We eventually met a group of guys from Colorado State University, who took us in to their group of 3, rounding out our number to 6 which made us all feel a bit more secure. After hours of wandering and watching, the group and I became separated somehow as I was talking to two kilted scotsman. Luckily, or so I thought, H and I had decided on a meeting place near the Plaza Del Toros in case of division. So I made my way there at about 2 in the morning, sitting on a bench waiting for Herr Sonntag. I awoke at sunrise around 5:30 to find that my wallet had been surgically removed from my cargo pocket by some gentle thief with a sharp knife and thorough knowledge of pocket anatomy. Luckily I had removed my bank card, driver's liscense, and insurance card from my wallet beforehand and stashed it in Harrison's money pouch which thankfully surved the night although the contents of H's pockets did not. So I lost a few days Euro but felt lucky to have come out with my throat and passport intact. At 8 am the first skyrocket exploded telling the runners to begin sprinting for their lives, followed by a second 1 minute later to inform them of the release of the bulls. From my bench I heard the first cheers of the crowds as the runners began to trickle in 3 minutes after the first report, followed by louder cheers for the bulls. The entire running only lasts 5 minutes if all goes according to plan, which apparently it did. At 10 o'clock after a conversation with a very nice french guy, I made my way to the bus station knowing that H and I had booked an 11 o clock bus to Vittoria, hoping that H had remembered that even if he had forgotten our meeting place. As I came to the escalator to the underground bus ramps, I felt an enormous bear hug from behind and heard "Greeeeeeeegg." H had apparently gone back to a park with the CSU crew and fallen asleep in a graveyard somewhere in Pamplona. After attempting to find our meeting spot at 9am he then thankfully retreated to the bus station. So we boraded the bus, arrived in Vittoria one hour later, and then slept for the next 9 in our red stained clothing, glad to have escape Pamplona more or less intact. Our CSU friends who camped next to their car, had also been robbed and were left only with the clothes on their backs, and their passports and bank cards which they had hidden in the wheel well of the spare tire of their car.

We spent yesterday taking it easy, and today was a day of transit. Tomorrow H will fly out to Dublin and I will make my way to the start of the Camino. All is more or less well.