Todd’s experience running with the bulls was a lot better than mine, so I’m going to let him dazzle you with that story.
The tradition in Pamplona is to sleep in the park, and then run with the bulls the next day. This is a convenient tradition because we didn’t want to pay for hotels anyway.
We walked as far away from the festivities as possible, which go all the way until around 4am every night, and set up our awesome Luxury Lite cots in the park. We locked our bags shut and locked them to our cots. Sleeping was a bit cold since we don’t actually have sleeping bags, but the Luxury Lite definitely keeps you comfortable.
The next morning we woke up and frantically packed our beds up to get down to the city to run. Runners had to be in place at 7:30. At 7:28 we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find the right place to duck through the wooden safety barriers.
Just in the nick of time we squeezed in and took our places.
I wasn’t scared until then. The odds of getting hurt are actually very low, but that doesn’t make much difference to your brain when you’re in a cobblestone alley that’s about to be a racetrack for 1500 pound bulls.
“No.”
The police officer was pointing to Todd’s shoes, the Vibram Five Fingers. They are intended for running, but he didn’t buy it. I don’t think I’ve seen Todd angry on this entire trip, but he looked like he was about to explode. We tried to explain that Todd is a runner and that the shoes were made for running, but they weren’t hearing it. He got pulled out and I was pushed down further by the crowd.
Not running with the bulls wasn’t an option. Todd would have to buy new shoes and we’d stay another night.
That night, however, was freezing and windy. There was no way we could comfortably sleep in our spot in the park. So we waited up in the bus station, hoping that when it closed we’d be permitted to sleep in it.
No dice.
Then we went to an underground parking lot and tried to pay the day rate for a parking spot.
They weren’t having any of that either.
We decided to walk out of town a bit, away from the crowds. In town there were so many people trying to find somewhere to sleep that we knew we probably wouldn’t find anything.
We crossed the street near the bus terminal and walked across the big sidewalk-median that separated the lanes. We passed over a grate that was blowing out hot air.
“Maybe we can just sleep here.”
It was so nice and warm that we decided to try it even though it was nearly certain that the police would move us. Maybe we could get at least an hour of sleep or so before we got kicked out.
We set up and our beds became an instant spectacle, particularly with my silk sheets and the eye mask I got from Qatar airways. To our surprise we were never kicked out and we slept soundly all night.
Well, not totally soundly. People woke me up a few times to take pictures and girls would yell out “sweet dreams” and “good night” as they passed. Here’s a video:
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