30 For 30 — Day 24: Bucket List…

30 Days.
30 Photos.
30 Lessons.

Lesson 24: Bucket List…

As much as I want to be a person that always flies by the seat of his pants I am too much of my dad’s son and I need to-do lists to be productive.

Luckily, sometimes those to-do lists are full of ridiculous shit…like running with the bulls.

It was July 2011 when we decided to make the trip. We were visiting a friend in Madrid during our study abroad summer and Pamplona was only a 5 or 6 hour bus ride north near the border of France. We bought bus tickets, red scarves, and that was about it. No plan to stay there for the night, no real emergency contacts, our only navigation would be our friend, Jesse, who spoke Spanish fluently (albeit Mexican Spanish, which is fairly different from Spain Spanish) and Jesse was going to meet us at the bus station before we left on the midnight bus from Madrid.

The first day of the Festival de San Fermin is July 7 and we boarded the bus in Madrid at 11:45pm July 6. Myself, Davis, Minesh sat on the bus pretty wired….and our friend Jesse, our only hope at translation, was nowhere to be found.

As the minutes ticked closer and closer to our 12:30am departure time we started to get antsy. We would have no idea where to go once we landed, we would have no way to figure out the best place to enter the course, so we started to try and plan among ourselves. Our hushed, frantic, English whispers were rife with anxiety. Spaniards were all around us trying to sleep on this red-eye bus and we looked like goons in our festival attire cursing under our breath wondering what we were going to do without Jesse.

12:30am struck and the bus driver put out his cigarette in a container outside the bus where he’d been standing and boarded the bus. The doors hissed and came to a close and he turned the key in the ignition. The bus started right up and people began to settle into their seats, resting their heads on windows. Davis, Minesh, and I looked at each other because we knew we were fucked.

Before the driver put the bus in gear a loud banging came from what sounded like underneath us. Surely a healthy engine doesn’t make this sound. A few of us lifted our heads and looked down and out the window. It was no engine sound. It was a strong tanned hand punching the side of the bus as our friend Jesse came up the length of the bus shouting for the driver to wait and slamming his fist against the bus every 3 feet.

The bus was dead silent until we 3 Americans screamed in joy at the top of our lungs and we greeted our friend as he climbed the stairs of the bus to join us in our seats. The tired citizens gave us a look and we apologized and settled back in our seats. We spoke for maybe 5 minutes with Jesse trying to give the story of his tardiness (which I don’t remember to this day because I was just so happy he was there) and then passed out as we made our way to Pamplona and the Running Of The Bulls.

I think it’s something that is on a lot of people’s bucket list. “Run with the bulls”. It’s funny to look back and be able to say that I did it. It’s a source of pride but also has helped me realize that the bucket list isn’t that big of a deal. Maybe that’s the lesson here. Almost 10 years ago I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain with 3 close friends and now when it comes up (it rarely actually comes up) it gets a cool reaction and then life goes on haha. If I had fathered a child at age 20 instead of ran with the bulls I would now have a cooler story. And the product of that story could now read and talk and do my laundry…all my story can do is get more fantastical every year I re-tell it.

Anyway, the bus pulled into Pamplona at 6am or something like that and we powerwalked to the city center. As we got deeper into the city the number of people dressed like us in festival attire increased. Within the hour and well before the 7:30am bull release we were on the course ready to go!

About 15minutes before the event was supposed to begin, our nerves rising by the second, we saw a large commotion from down the cobblestone road. A line of police officers with batons were moving in formation towards us. As if we were the cattle we were herded from the course through an open gate into an alley. We were shoved and threatened by the officers until eventually an entire block’s worth of people had been removed from the course. They slammed the protective barrier gate and guarded it preventing anyone from re-entering the course.

Once again we were fucked.

We had 10minutes. We had to get back on the course. We did not take a bus in the middle of the night through rural Spain to WATCH the running of the bulls. We came to run.

What Jesse lacked in being prompt and on time for busses he made up for in determination and gusto. He said, “let’s go” and ran off to the south… closer to two places:
1. the entrance of the course where the bulls were released…meaning we would have longer to run
2. Dead man’s corner…the most dangerous place on the course. Where bulls cannot make the 90 degree turn at full speed on the cobblestones and usually slip and fall and ram into whatever is in their path. Only to then get up and have a straight shot up the street where hundreds of runners have bottlenecked and eventually get overrun. Google it.

We knew it was risky but we were going to get into the course again.

Jesse found a gap in the fence after running a couple hundred yards south and talked to the guard in Spanish. He motioned to us to come along and it was as simple as that. We were back with 5 minutes to spare. We looked around and decided we should run north some to make it a shorter distance once it began. We went around a turn and everyone began to get antsy. They knew it was about to begin. We decided to hunker down there and when we did we finally noticed where we had stopped:

Dead Man’s Corner.

Just then a firework shot off in the distance to the south and it had begun. That was the signal. We were going to be receiving the bulls at the most dangerous place on the course. It felt like 20 minutes of agonizing waiting but it was more likely 45 seconds before the sound of hooves on stone began to fill the alleys and echo around like thunder. As the sound grew stronger people began to push and shove as flight or fight took over.

Some took off running and some waited. We waited.

As the sound became louder and louder we got shoved hard against the alley wall opposite where the bulls would be sliding. A couple hundred men backpedaled until all of us were pinned to the stone wall and were left with nothing else to do but wait as the bulls arrived.

The bulls came around the corner in a group of 4 at first. Some slipped and fell but immediately got back up and picked up speed down the straightaway that would lead to the stadium where the festival ended. We were pinned with nowhere to go! We couldn't just run after the bulls, we had to run with them. I saw Jesse squeeze his way out from the crowd and take off. I lost sight of him in seconds. Minesh, Davis, and I eventually pushed our way out into the alley. The next wave of bulls had just passed so we took off at full speed. We had no idea if more would be coming.

Our American stupidity had brought us to this point and now our longer American legs would lead us to the front of the pack. We stood a head taller than most others running so we sprinted the half mile through the streets behind the wave of bulls trying our best not to look back. Jesse was gone but we knew he’d be fine. After a few minutes as the sounds of the bulls lessened the sound of a crowd grew stronger. I ran through stadium gates out onto a sandy field and found myself inside what felt like a Gladiatorial colosseum. This was the final stage of the Festival.

I heard gates closing behind me as they let the final wave of bulls into the stadium and closed off the entrance to people who were too slow to make it in with them. Miraculously, I found Jesse, then Davis, then Minesh! We had all made it in time. We had run with (near) the bulls.

“So what happens now?” we asked ourselves as we all mulled about on this sandy colosseum ground.
An Aussie tourist had overheard us and chuckled to himself, “Next comes the fun part, mates! They let the teenagers loose!”

Before we could inquire more we heard a wave of screams and cheers. From a door opposite us came a young bull at full speed. Skinnier than the adults that had run earlier, but faster and with more energy and anger. It burst out the door and leapt over the people that had gathered near it to wait. Once it landed it looked around like the caged beast it was and began to chase anything and everything that moved. In other words, the 200 people that had made it into the Stadium were now trapped with it.

I wish I could describe better the fear and excitement we felt. We all had different decisions to make for ourselves. Jesse went in full steam and began chasing the bull and being chased as did many other folks. Davis and I stayed in the colosseum but kept a semi-safe distance, only running if the bull burst through the crowd coming for us. Minesh scaled the fence almost immediately and watched from safety (sorry Minesh).

For the next half an hour they released one bull at a time every 3–5 minutes. They would bring one back inside and then release and fresh one. It was hilarious after the fear wore off. We stayed the entire time. Jesse was the only one to walk away with an injury…a scrape on his elbow and I think some bent glasses after he tried to juke the bull. Fun fact: they don’t fall for head fakes. They run right through you. Jesse was fine.

As the last tween bull got wrangled back into the stadium we were released back into the streets. The juxtaposition of the sounds and feelings was jarring. We had spent the last 2 hours going at full speed amidst hundreds of people who were moving around like bees within a hive only to be released back into a city that was going dormant again as it waited for tomorrow’s festivities.

We got some food in the city, thought about what we had just done, and then made our way back to the bus station.

I wish the ending of this story had a better crescendo but that is how it ended. Bucket list joy is a shot of heroin. It’s amazing but short-lived, and I don’t mind. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. That sweet, sweet heroin of an adventure was amazing.

As I get older I realize that I want the joy to last so I think my bucket list is shifting somewhat.
I’ve run with the bulls, I’ve jumped out of planes, I’ve scuba dived (dove?) a hundred feet beneath the ocean, I’ve been to many countries.
Now as I look at things I want to do before I leave this earth it’s slightly different. Kids, marriage, giving back, sharing joy with others…it’s become less about myself, which is nice to realize.

I honestly hadn’t thought about what my bucket list as a 30 year-old is…I should do that. I think it would be a fun mix of radical and realistic.

Don’t worry, there are still some heroin shots left on it. I have yet to drive a motorcycle, swim with sharks, climb Everest…but the new additions are going to be nice too.
Maybe own a house? Gross. I’m still getting used to this.

I’m just happy I have these random goals in mind as something to strive for. I like lists. They’re helpful. Whether it be productivity or fun. I look forward to crossing more things off the list as time passes.

Can’t let up the gas pedal. That’s what keeps the youth.
30 is a number…that’s it.

Giddyup,
Pat