Sanfermines by Diego Cameirao

 
                                                   San Fermin, Pamplona´s Celebration
San Fermin is maybe the best celebration in Spain. It is only necessary to ask people about it and they will tell you that it is a very good festival, where anybody can have fun.

The Celebration lasts one week, from 6th of July to 14th of July.
Typical clothes are a white shirt, white trousers and a red scarf. And a typical song is `Riau-Riau´.
On 6th is the `Chupinazo´. It is the most important moment of all in San Fermin. It is always on most televisions of all countries in the world. It happens in front of the town hall.

All the week there are `Encierros´. Before, people sing songs to start them. People who don´t run there, wait in the bulls ring, where bulls arrive at the ends of el encierro.

Also, all the nights at 11pm, there is a firework display. Near Rochapea there is an amusement park, where there are many rides and attractions to enjoy.

Finally, on 14th of July, that celebration ends and in the town hall, people sing `Pobre de mi´ to say goodbye to San Fermin.

50th Anniversary of Hemingway's suicide

This year is the 50th anniversary of Hemingway's death, almost a week before of the start of his most loved festival, Sanfermines, which have been made famous worldwide thanks to the American writer.

His wife and himself arrived in Pamplona in 1923 for first time, when Ernest Heminway was working as a correspondent in Europe for the Canadian newspaper Toronto Star.

From the very beginning, Hemingway was shocked by the atmosphere of Sanfermines and he realized it was the most awesome festival in the world. He was right, as he used to, because Sanfermines is unique in the world and the only way to say that is to live the fiesta in Pamplona.

Hemingway arrive in Pamplona to discover the truth as part of an article to describe the madness of running in front of six bulls in the streets of a lost city, Pamplona, in the north of a semi-known country, Spain.The author of the Sun also rises not only saw that it was right, but he also found something else, much more than the expected.Thenceforth, Ernest fell in love ,like a mad lover, with our festival, he could ever forget them and he visited us eight more times.

“The sun also rises” (“Fiesta”)is published in 1926, and as any Navarrian must know, inspired and starred in the Sanfermines of those years. It is considered his first best-seller, even when that word was not in use that period, and made Sanfermines become famous worldwide.

The Literature nobel prize winner of 1954 was year after year more famous in the city and we paid tribute to his figure in Pamplona too. When Ernest Hemingway visited Pamplona, he used to stay in Hotel La Perla, in Plaza del Castillo. Now you can also stay in the famous room 217 and see the encierro live.

Now a guiri, the well-known word to define the foreigner in Sanfermines, can visit places in Pamplona like the tavern El Txoko, café Iruña or Torino thanks to the famous novel of Hemingway. There the writer used to meet his friends to eat and drink the tipical Navarrian products.

He never ran in front of the bulls, as most of his fellow countrymen do now, what they should avoid for the best of the Sanfermines. Anyway, he enjoyed the view of the running of the bulls from the kitchen of the old Hotel Maisonnave in the famous Estafeta street, and of course, he watched the bullfighting in the Pamplona bull ring.

We can't know how famous Sanfermines would be if Hemingway hadn't discovered for the entire world in 1923, but it is clear that without the author of "Fiesta" Sanfermines would not be the same nowadays.

Death at Sanfermines

This year’s ‘Sanfermines’, the famous tradition of running with the bulls in Pamplona, has claimed one life, the first person to die at these festivities since 1995.

The accident occurred during the fourth ‘encierro’ (enclosure), which is when the bulls run through the streets towards the bullring where they will then be enclosed. During the same run, ten people were injured, eight of them by bulls horns.

The victim was gored in the neck by a bull called Capuchino on the last stretch of the run which took four minutes and a half.

This particular bull caused several moments of danger as he lagged behind the others and injured several runners. Paramedics rushed to the scene and found him to be in critical condition. An ambulance then took him to Navarra Hospital where he underwent surgery, but minutes after it was completed he died from a neck wound which had damaged his left lung and the major veins and arteries.

The last death at the Sanfermines was that of 62-year-old Fermin Etxeberria Irañeta from Pamplona in 2003. He had been running with the bulls since he was 14 years old. He was in hospital for two and a half months before he died.

There have been 15 deaths in total in the 87 years since the new Pamplona bullring was inaugurated in 1922. A 22-year-old American, Matthew Peter Tasio, died in 1995. In both 1947 and 1980, two people died during the Sanfermines.

Although other activities take place during the traditional festivities in honour of San Fermin, the most famous is obviously the running of the bulls.

It takes place every morning between July 7 and 14 at 8am. The bulls run 800 metres to the bullring, usually taking about three minutes.

Celebrations for San Fermin have been taking place since at least the XII century and were originally held in September, but in 1591 were changed to July because of the better weather conditions.

It was American writer Ernest Hemingway who made them famous throughout the world in his book ‘Fiesta’. During the week of the celebrations, the population of Pamplona, 190,000 people, sees an influx of up to three million.