‘San Fermin’ festival is a non-stop celebration of everything good (friendship, love, family, food, wine, music and more) for a grueling 9 days! The entire city (the citizens and the tourists alike) done on stark white clothes with red scarfs around their neck, waist and wrists. We started the celebrations by doning on our own white and red clothing, gracisouly arranged by our hosts, Mar and Habi and kickstarting the day at 9:00 am in the morning with a big group (30 of us) breakfast in a nearby club. The breakfast feats includes lot of meat and ‘Kalimotxo’ (a delicious and addictive concotion of wine and Coca-Cola!) and everybody hogs as much as they can so as to stock up on the much-needed energy to endure what follows next. Smiling and laughing, we all march out to the streets and sing out the chorus, “Alegria, Hallelujah! Viva San Fermin!”
As we neared the town hall square, I witnessed a sight which made me gasp and squeal of joy and awe! In front of the majestic City Hall were jam-packed countless bodies in red-and-white, spraying everyone with beer and wine from the bottles and singing songs of friendship and celebration. The ‘chupinazo’ – firing of the guns shot by the city mayor signaling the start of the celebrations had just happened and there was an addictive sense of merriment in the air. We couldn’t escape the wrath of this ‘fun’ fever and in mere seconds were soaked from head to toe with wine and beer, as our fellow-revelers shouted “ Estais demasiado blancos” (you are too white!)
Continuing on our cultural quest, Javi and his 20 other ‘Guapos’ friends (Pamplona men are very good looking as all of them are tall, good body built and blue eyes) led us from one cool bar to another. It was no normal task to let alone enter each of the bars but also manage to stay tall on your feet in any of these bars as everyone of them was crowded to the brim with revelers, singing and dancing to the inebriating beats of Spanish music. The dance fever bit me as soon as I found myself gulping down the sweet ambrosia, one after another, sometimes through a hole in the ‘cachi’ (big glass of goodness). Before we knew it, we had mapped about 15 different bars and danced for a non stop 14 hours straight!
I know that my energy reserves are high but in comparison to the locals of Pamplona, I felt ashamed.. After calling it an early night at 11:00 pm, we left the rest of our gang to dance into the next morning and heard all their crazy stories and the fun we missed out on, the next morning over breakfast.
