Running? With the Bulls

The slam of Ricardo and Yolanda's car door next to us woke me up, at 8:00. SHIT!!! The bulls are released at 8:00 and we're at least 20 minutes from getting there, even if we haul ass. I ran over to Jonathan and Courtney's tent - “Dude, it's 8:00!!! I slept through my alarm!!! FUCK!!!” “Uggggg...” was the response I got. Well, back to bed I go. Talk about pissed. And not only pissed, but I was feeling terribly guilty about being the one with the wake up call and sleeping through it. And it was the last day of the festival so it's not like we could just do it tomorrow. Plus, Rick and a few other guys from Holland had left us a note to please wake them up when we got up in the morning to go running. DAMMIT!!!
I had totally blown it. I can honestly say that this is the one thing that I truly regret on our trip so far. I had the chance to run with the bulls and I chose to party all night long instead. I'm an idiot. I really hated myself that day.

But as pissed as I was, I apparently wasn't going to let it ruin my day. While (my) Courtney laid in the van, hungover, watching The Hangover on the laptop, Jonathan, Kevin and I were at the bar doing tequila shots and drinking beers. I guess it helped to numb the pain a bit. We couldn't let the trip to Pamplona go to waste, so we opted for the next best, most authentic event of the festival – the final night of the bull fights. Honestly, this was not something that either Courtney or I really wanted to see, but we weren't going to judge before we saw it. As it turns out, it was quite gruesome and hard to watch at some points, but at the same time quite graceful and you could see the great tradition of which the sport was born. To the bull fight, we can now say “Been there. Done that.” Don't have to do it again. It actually gives Courtney nightmares sometimes.



So we made the best of our last night in town. We still had a few cocktails but managed to tone it down a little. Jonathan and Courtney bombed out of town at around midnight to go meet up with a friend in France and Kev stuck around to “pursue other ventures”. We passed out for a long snooze after two hard days of liver abuse. Other entertainment highlights from Pamplona included touring the beautiful Airstream trailer of Bill the Brit (plusher than plush could be) and sitting, wondering curiously, with beer in hand, why the three guys across the way were going full force into their workout routine that would probably have made me puke on my best day. One armed push ups, upside down push ups, bending steel, lifting cars, knocking over trees... We hung out with the guys later on and they were actually really cool, we just all agreed that nope, not on our holiday.



So now I'll probably end up like Billy Crystal, running with the bulls when I'm 50, coming home with a new a-hole. Overall Pamplona was awesome, but could have been the probable highlight of the entire trip if only I wasn't such a dumb ass. I guess it was especially cool since it wasn't even on the itinerary until a few days before we rolled into town. I'll try hard not to regret too much the things that almost weren't even possible anyways. I'm looking on the bright side.

Bitter Sweet

It's classic Courtney and Jer travel planning. Not until we are on the way to Bilbao do we realize that (say it really fast like you're really excited about it) “Hey, after the concert we can bomb down to Pamplona and catch the end of the San Fermin Festival (aka the Running of the Bulls). Theeeen we can bomb down to Barcelona and catch the Tour de France. We can paint a big Livestrong logo on the side of Floyd since he's the perfect shade of yellow and go kick it with Lance. Sweet!” Knock knock. Who's there? Reality checking in. You already missed the Spanish legs of the Tour. Better luck “next time”. “Next time”... an unfortunate recurrence in this story.

So out of Bilbao we go heading to Pamplona. With the GPS set on “no toll roads” we have a wonderful tour through the Spanish hill towns. It was surely a slower go than taking the highways, but so much more enjoyable. We passed through some of the cutest little villages, often only at 20 km per hour with the steep hills, and by some of the most picturesque sunflower and wheat fields you could imagine.

Rolling into the campsite outside of Pamplona that evening we were greeted by crowds of sangria soaked festival goers, bus loads full of travel-Europe-on-a-bus-in-a-drunken-haze ala spring break twenty-somethings and plenty of Euro-pop, oonce'ing its way out of the stereo at the bar. Apparently we arrived at the right time. San Fermin runs for one week, and we got there on day five. We got in a bit late that night so we had some dinner and relaxed before bed.

The next morning we were up bright and early, ready to catch the 7:15 bus into town. We made our way into the bull ring, as opposed to trying to cram our way along the path that the bulls run through town, and got to some empty seats in the upper deck. A bit short on the requisite all white outfits with red belt and bandanna around the neck, we stood out a little in the crowd. Sorry, my white pants were at the dry cleaners. They had a big screen that would scroll through all of the stats for the bulls that were running that day – Vandalico, 550 kg... Oficial, 535 kg... Incapaz, 615 kg... Suenomio, 635 kg!!! Courtney and I had talked the night before about whether or not I would actually run with the bulls. My answer was yes, I would love to be a part of this amazing experience, but knowing absolutely nothing about it, maybe we should watch from the bull ring the first day. Now that we're there and seeing the size of those mothers... holy crap. So aside from the frightening tale of the tape that they had scrolling on the jumbotron, there was a band down in the bull ring entertaining the audience as well as several bands in the crowd that would burst out in song every few minutes. The crowd was always chanting and singing along, so festive and everyone was in such a great mood. No doubt largely enhanced by the vast quantities of sangria that are consumed on a minute-by-minute basis.

To start the events off, there is a traditional chant that all of the runners do, praying to San Fermin for their health and assuredly their hides as well. A giant bottle rocket is shot off to signal that the bulls have been released from their pen and that you need to start movin' your ass. Then another rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are actually out of the pen and that you're about to get trampled. They have a flying camera on a wire, akin to those you find in NFL stadiums, that follows the path of the run all the way into the bull ring and that is beamed onto the big screen so everyone in the stadium gets to watch the action. About a minute and a half later the first runners trickle into the ring, then they start to flood in, then the six bulls run into and directly out of the ring, led and followed by the tender-bulls that are used to guide the ornery (ie non-castrated) bulls on their journey to the ring. A third rocket goes off signaling that the bulls have entered the ring and then quickly a fourth and final rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are safely out of the bullring. Man that was exciting! Let's go home.

Not quite. Now comes the entertainment for those of us who were sitting patiently in the bullring through all of this running excitement. First off, Juan Madden gets in the control booth and starts going wild with the instant replay. All of the prime gorings and tramplings from the run are reviewed, in slow mo, forward, back, highlighted with a little bubble where each guy took a hoof to the nuts or a horn to the rib cage. This is on par with good old American trash TV. Once they've finally run through all of the good footage, the live entertainment starts. One at a time, while all of the runners are still in the bull ring, they let another bull loose to play with everyone. This guys is smaller, has corked horns but is still feisty. Here's the chance for all of the runners who felt that they didn't get a big enough thrill on the run to see what they've got against a live bull. It's not so much that they do their best matador wannabe moves, rather they run by the bull and smack him on the butt or get in front of him and try and juke him out as he charges. The pros will run and dive over the bulls for a good cheer. After five minutes or so they trot a giant, calm herder-bull into the ring and he rounds up the wild one. This goes on six times and after an hour or so the show is over.



As a new bull is released into the ring, all of the crazy folks will lie down in front of the doorway so that the bull jumps over the pile of people. Usually the pile gets so big that bulls only make it about half way across the pile and have to jump off the people mid-pile. There was one guy who was kind of the all-star of the show this day. An obviously western guy with big blond dreads rolling down his back. He stood out because of the hair, and because he wasn't in uniform, so you would always spot him when he got close to the bulls. One time he got a little too close and the bull ended up with his backpack hanging off of a horn. That brought a big cheer from the crowd. He got it back eventually and continued to test his fate as the bulls kept coming. One time he got kind of tangled up with the bull and kind of had to hold onto its head and horns to keep from getting gored. Now this, if done on purpose, is a big no-no. There is definitely a certain etiquette to interacting with the bulls, and touching their heads is highly frowned upon. But then again, if it's the only thing you can do to not get totally trampled then go for it. But some folks in the ring didn't think that Dreads was playing nice and went after him throwing haymakers. I don't think they landed any, and things got broken up pretty quickly. The most entertaining part of the interaction was when the cops then dragged the angry Spaniard who was ready to fight over the wall and out of the bull ring like a ragdoll. That got the biggest cheer of the day.

One of the funniest things to watch was when the bulls would clear the wall. Now the runners who are seeking refuge would jump over the wall of the bullring, out of harms way. The walls would often get lined with people who didn't want to look scared and actually jump over the wall, but didn't want to get in the middle of the ring to tangle with the bulls. The bulls would often drop a horn and run along the wall, forcing all of those taking a rest to flee in an instant. It was like a mini wave. Hilarious. After all six bulls had their chance to run around with the guys in the ring, we made our way out to the streets of Pamplona. We wandered the streets for a while, up and down the path that everyone runs and just took in the sights of old town Pamplona. An obvious highlight from our walk was the helping of warm churros and thick, chocolate dipping drink that we munched on. Mmmm... churros... A little shopping and a bit more wandering and we were back to the campsite by mid day. Time to do laundry.

A little while later we got some new neighbors – Jonathan, Courtney and Kevin – travelers from OZ and NZ – coming to Pamplona to see what all of the excitement is about. Well, Kev had been to Pamplona earlier that week but he was back to pursue his aspirations with the pretty bar maid at the campsite. Go Kev! We hung out all day and after several bottles of sangria, several bottles of wine and a few beers we were heading back into town to party. Downtown was so lively and everywhere you went there were people chanting, singing and loving the overall merriment of the evening. Every beer seemed to be at least a litre, so things got fuzzy quickly. What was very clear to all of us now is that the boys were going to run with the bulls tomorrow. The Courtneys weren't quite game, but they were down with grabbing a ringside seat and taking lots of photos of us hopefully not getting a new hole. I was much less apprehensive about running too, since I now had some buddies to do it with. All we had to do was wake up at 5:00 am, IN TWO HOURS, so that we can make it to town on the 5:30 bus and get there in time to get onto the path before the officials lock it down. Let's just say we should have stayed up all night.

More From Our Back Door

There were of course your ancient ruined houses speckling the hillsides and the resident goats crossing the path in hopes of a handout. As we neared our halfway point about three hours in, we made our way down a side trail to the riverbed. Cool, clear and ready for a swim if only it were a bit warmer that day. The trail went on much further but we opted to do a 180 and head back to the van. Amazingly, the landscape was so beautifully varied that the walk home offered up totally new scenery, just by turning around.






The natural beauty of the Ruta de Cares brought with it some other truly unique and entertaining sights to behold.

I told Courtney at one point along our hike that I'm sure we'd see some fashionable Spanish lady walking this trail in heels. Well, here she is.


And something we didn't expect to see - a unicycler. A frickin' unicycler!

La Paz and Picos de Europa definitely gave us the back-to-nature feeling that we were looking for. It's been interesting to see the phases we go through – feeling naturey, feeling like the city, feeling like “doin' stuff”. We have definitely found that it's a pretty even balance, with a bit of lean towards the natural goodness. It's the hippie in us. Thanks for all the Berkeley-esque influence Mom and Dad.

The View From Our Back Door

After three weeks of ice cream, blue cheese cream sauces and Courtney and I not sharing meals (like we normally do now) in France with the Family Meibergen, then concert quantities of concert booze and concert food and then shifting it into high gear for three days in Pamplona, we were ready for a break. Nature was calling, and we didn't just have to pee. North we went to San Sebastian, along the Atlantic coast for some sunny beaches and good tapas. We found both and for two days we soaked them up, but this wasn't scratchin' the nature itch.

We headed west along the coast until we came to Llanes, Spain. Fortunately for us, back in Pamplona Bill the Brit had told Johnny the workout king who then told us about a great campsite up in the Llanes area called La Paz. Well we found it and Bill was right, simply amazing. Camping La Paz is situated right on the water on a fantastically terraced hillside. Pretty much every single site has a wonderful, unobstructed ocean view and makes you feel like you're camping right there on the beach. And this was only half of the greatness that this area had to offer.




Not a bad view from the showers.

We were also right on the edge of the Parque Nacional Picos de Europa and what we found there was just as great as the grand camping status that La Paz had offered up. We drove into the park for about an hour, parked Floyd along the roadside and made our way to the Ruta de Cares trail. The trail runs from the little village of Poncebos and follows the Rio Cares pretty much as far as you want to follow it. You're in the middle of the mountains and the trail fires off at a pretty good grade right from the start. The valley that you're in is surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs that give you a serious sense of vertigo when you look up their faces at the the drifting clouds. After a while the trail works its way right onto the cliff faces so that your high side goes straight up the rock face while your downhill side drops of a sheer cliff. You've got your four foot wide path and that's it.

Let's Rock!

A much anticipated visit by the family Meibergen was just what we needed. With the exception of a few weeks in China with Murphy, we've been void of live and in person contact with friends and family for the past eight months. Our visit with Carl, Sheila and Ben through France was very relaxing and at the same time quite action packed. But this was only a warm up for the next few weeks of adventure.

Their 5:00 am wake up call was supposed to be our 5:00 am wake up call, but a crappy nights sleep, sore throats and apparent general lack of z's lately resulted in hitting the snooze button until closer to noon. Well, at least we got more than twelve hours out of our 33 Euro parking space in Nice – at least that was worth it now... So with a Big Mac in our bellies we hit the road. The pre-dawn wake up was supposed to get us on the road and bombing over to Bilbao, 1,000 km to the west along the northern coast of Spain, to a three day concert festival – Bilbao BBK Live – arriving in town just as the opening act started playing on Thursday evening. Well the late start, Pyrenees, low power-to-weight ratio of Floyd and sheer distance ensured our late arrival. So unfortunately we missed out on seeing the Ting Tings, Depeche Mode, (Michael - will you ever speak to us again??)The Editors and a few more. We were definitely sad we missed them all, but luckily we had two more days of acts to look forward to.

A night spent at another lovely French rest area left us refreshed and ready to rock. When we bought the tickets online back in May, while we were in London, we were stoked to find them for only 40 British pounds each (rather than the 150 Euro sticker price) and that included camping. What we didn't read in the fine print until the night before the show was that it was for tents only, carried in on the complementary shuttle bus, up at the venue. Floyd was unfortunately not going to be able to rock out with us this time. Anyways, we made it into town and eventually found our way to the over-sized parking lot where our high-top super van could actually fit. It was a great spot actually – right on the river in the middle of central Bilbao. And it didn't cost a dime. A nice stroll to the other side of the river, a complementary shuttle bus ride and few hundred feet in elevation got us to the venue that evening. The show was in a great spot on a hilltop just outside the city with an amazing view of everything below. Dueling stages were set up for quick transitions between bands, there was a grassy hillside that offered sunny views of both stages and the beers were large and cold, albeit 7 Euro a pop.



Friday night we were entertained by the likes of Supergrass, Babyshambles, Dave Mathews Band, Chris Cornell, Kaiser Chiefs, Jane's Addiction and Echo & The Bunnymen. For a while we were happy with lounging on the hillside, soaking up the rays, tunes and drinks, but the concert vibe struck us as the night went on. As we sat and watched the show we noticed that while one stage was rockin', the other was in transition for the next act and left almost totally void of fans. Well hell, if that's the case I think we have an opportunity to get up front. We've both seen Dave several times and absolutely love his live shows. Now we had the chance to see him from the front rail instead of the nosebleeds. So we went and stood at the front of the crowd, well, in the second row rather, and swayed to the sounds of Babyshambles that were pumping out across the lawn. We were also entertained by the drunken, obnoxious, please-foreigner-hook-up-with-me American girl who stood right in front of us. Classic entertainment. And of course, much to our pleasure, Dave's show, while only an hour and a half long, was awesome. The guy is so charismatic, funny, dorky and damn talented on stage. Plus Tim Reynolds played with them and they have picked up a very respectable replacement on the saxophone. Highlight show of the night for both of us. As for the rest of the night - Chris Cornell was rad when he played old Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog or Audio Slave songs, mediocre when he pulled out tunes from the new album (WTF was he thinking teaming up with Timbaland?!?!)... Kaiser Chiefs were really good... had never heard of Babyshambles before but they were good, Jane's Addiction was super lively and energetic and back with the original line up that included dreamy,shirtless Dave Navarro so Courtney was happy... there were super kebabs that weren't so super and enough free Modelo bandanas to last a lifetime.


Saturday gave us the opportunity to sleep in, do a little grocery shopping and recoup a bit from the sickness that had hit us both. That night we made it to see the Phenomenal Handclap Band, Baddies, Asian Dub Foundation, Primal Scream and Placebo. Everyone put on a good show, but we especially enjoyed the Baddies (very British pop) and Phenomenal Handclap Band (quite an eclectic mix of sounds). Courtney and I were both a little tipsy and really looking forward to hopping in to the Guitar Hero tent that they had set up, but after seeing the guy rock the drums on expert and put the video game to shame, we shied away. I think our video game guitar skills are best left for Jimmy and Sara's living room. We opted out of the late night DJ tent both nights, but apparently it was open with x'd out concert goers dancing around in trancy goodness until 7:00 am each morning. More power to you guys... I'm going to bed.

We were able to have a nice bike ride around central Bilbao on Sunday. There is a beautiful old town area that is classically cobble stoned, narrow streeted and quaintly European, as was to be expected. The real highlight of Bilbao in terms of the touristy things to do is the Guggenheim Museum. It's as wild on the outside as you'd expect and according to the guidebook, much better to look at than what's actually inside the museum. Ya, we didn't go in. No time. We were off to our next destination – Pamplona!

You're Going to Sleep Where?!?!

Actually, sleeping in the van has so far been really good. I can't say that the dining area that folds down to a bed with too thin of cushions is on par with the dreamy queen size Sealy Posturpedic at home, but it works. Usually a bit better for Jer than Courtney. She woke up this morning claiming that she had just slept on rocks. So ya, it's a little hard sometimes.

But as far as where we've stayed, it's all over the board. I guess part of the brilliance of the van is that we can pull over pretty much wherever we want and have a meal or a snooze. We've utilized the fully outfitted rest areas many times - no power, but we have the gas and 12 volt to cook and see by. Sometimes it's the oversized vehicle parking lot in whatever town we're in.





We've also had some wonderful free-camps along the side of random roads. Sometimes it takes a while of driving through the neighborhoods to find an acceptable spot to pull over, but sometimes it's very rewarding too. This spot was up in the very north of Holland in a town called Harlingen. We were able to park for free right alongside one of the canals, and since it was a place where boats often moor up there was power for us too. Brilliant!


The campsites we've become accustomed to are a far cry from where we go for camping at home. Usually when we head out into the Pacific Northwest we're taking to the deepest, unmarked forest roads to find the off-the-beaten-track plot of cleared land to drop the tent and get away from anyone and anything. Over here we're looking for something that's a bit more akin to a KOA at home. (Damn you KOA...) With being on the road the actual way of life, we like the amenities. Showers – good. Showers with hot water – good. Free showers with hot water – GOOD! Wi-fi – hit and miss whether we get it or not, but good. Toilet paper in the stalls and soap by the sinks – good. Toilet dump stations, recycling stations, water fill up stations and all of those other facilities to take care of your caravaning needs – good. A big enough plot that gets you far enough away from the neighbor kids so that their screaming doesn't bother you as you try and sleep in – priceless. Even more priceless if the people next to you don't chain smoke and stankify the entire area.

Most of the campsites are pretty clean and give you a sectioned off plot that will be yours for the next 12-72 hours. These are usually pretty standard, but some sites that we've come upon have been downright beautiful. This one, in particular, was in Llanes, Spain along the norther coast. It was a beautifully terraced hillside right on the water and our spot looked over pretty much all of it, with the crashing waves of the Atlantic right out our back bedroom/dining room window. Loved it.


I gotta say, once we get home I won't be sorry to get back to camping in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, in a tent, un-showered, with a cooler of beer, hot dogs and s'mores. Mmmmm... s'mores... But I can say with a good deal of confidence, when we get to that RV'ing age in our later years, a trip down the I-5 to the Marathon factory and showroom will definitely be on the books.