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"Pamplona is changed, of course, but not as much as we are older. I found that if you took a drink it got very much the same as it always was."- Ernest Hemingway

At noon on the sixth of July the chupinazo (rocket) explodes above Pamplona's baroque town hall, heralding the start of Las Fiestas de San Fermin. Every year 700,000 revellers storm this normally sleepy Northern Spanish city for nine days and nine nights of non-stop mayhem, converting it into what has been called 'the hell-raising capital of the world.'

The town hall plaza and all the cobbled streets of the old town become a swirling river of white costumes, flashing with the scarlet flotsam of bandannas and sashes. The air is filled with shouts, songs and champagne spray. The heat is intense and the buckets of water, thrown from balconies high on the banks of this human river, are not entirely unwelcome.

In the midst of this current we held onto each other and struggled to stay on our feet, although the crowd was packed so tightly that it would have been difficult to find the shoulder-space to fall. For Tanya and Tim who had never been here before it was the wildest scene they have ever witnessed. Paul, Taff and myself, the other members of the Pamplona Posse, almost ranked as veterans - even amongst the hard-core pilgrims who never miss a fiesta for decades and declare that if you're absent for more than two in a row you're relegated to tourist-status!

Though we laughed gleefully at this explosion of human excitement we also spared a thought for the challenge that lay ahead. None of us was getting any younger and there was a price to pay for nine days spent in the hell-raising capital of the world. The previous year's fiesta had been so intense that the following week (while hitchhiking towards a post-fiesta decompression chamber in Salamanca) I had come down with pneumonia…a direct result of good living Pamplona-style!

As Paul declared reverently, draining a foaming bottle of champagne, "My body is a temple."

Dripping wet and muddy with a mix of champagne, eggs and chocolate powder we began to fight our way out of the crowd and headed for the corner of Calle Estafeta to fill our wineskins with the first of the week's sangria. The cobbles were slippery, the gutters ran with alcohol and lethal banks of broken bottles, like 'ice-drifts,' were already lining what is known as 'The Street of a Thousand Bars.' This is certainly somewhat of an exaggeration but the drinkers spilled out onto the street and mingled so tightly with those of the neighbouring bar that Estafeta could have been called more literally 'The Street of a Single Bar.' And it would stay this way until the fiesta ended 204 outrageous hours later.

As if this formidable display of rank irresponsibility was not endearing enough, every morning these four stories of balconies would be full of screaming spectators as six angry bulls and their attendant steers would come catapulting up this narrow street, pushing a wave of panicking humanity ahead of them. But we made a conscious decision not to dwell on that thought for the time being and drifted onwards, on a tour of some of the old haunts: sangria on the terrace of Bar Sevilla; shots of local pacharan at Bar Txoko; Spanish cider with olives at Caballo Blanco high above the mediaeval walls…

Since Ernest Hemingway (and - if as is believed his characters were not entirely fictitious - the Pamplona Posse from hell) 'discovered' the Navarran capital, over seventy years ago, tourists from all over the world have flocked to witness Las Fiestas de San Fermin for themselves. But the town's citizens say that, with very few exceptions, these visitors have ignored a great part of what the fiestas are all about.

Many of the most experienced local bull-runners make it a rule never to drink at all on an evening before they run and while I applaud their dedication and abstinence my only word of defence in this age-old debate is a lame…"W-ell, this is a fiesta."

Pamplona's position on the edge of the Spanish Pyrenees means that the nights can be chilly and, while (as Hemingway was quick to note) 'the sun also rises,' it can take a while for its warmth to penetrate into the streets around the town hall where a white river of humanity is once again ebbing and flowing. Every year more and more drowsy desperados make their way back into the town hall plaza for what has been called 'an early morning gallop with death.' The caffeine overdose and three hours of complex discussions on which was likely to be the most sensible spot in which to run on one of the busiest days of the fiesta meant that by the time Paul, Taff and I took our place under town hall clock once again paranoia already ruled the day.

For many bull-runners (specifically those who are aware of what is to come) the thirty minutes leading up to the eighth hour are a veritable torment. As we stared up at the seemingly paralysed clock, the runners around us began to roll and unroll their newspapers with a nervousness that was infectious. Like the San Fermin whites, the morning paper is essential equipment and a symbol of respect for the bull-run. Held in front of a charging bull it may lure him on a straight run and, if things go wrong, it could be the flash of a newspaper that diverts a bull's horns.

Visitors often think that the paper is used for slapping the bulls on the back in the same way that they imagine it to be a point of honour to run with a hand on the bull's rump. These practices are despised by experienced runners who have seen first-hand what the effect of this can be. The unfamiliar pressure on the bull's back can cause him to hook his head or veer away from his path unexpectedly. When this happens, the runner behind the horns is in very little danger compared to the men who are running ahead; a bull is only pointed on one end.

The paper's greatest disadvantage however lies in the news that it reports. As the days pass the centre-spread, showing yesterday's most dramatic moments (in gory Technicolor), can carry a terrible weight for those trying to kill time, with their future seeming bleaker - and shorter - by the minute. There are photos of inanimate bodies in post-apocalyptic streets strewn with newspaper, shoes and torn clothing. There is an interview with a victim reposing in glory in his hospital bed: "Uuuh-yep, doctors say I should be outa the wheel-chair in a couple of months…so reckon I'll be runnin' again by next year." You never get to hear about the ones who say, "**** that!"

There are countless legends concerning these dedicated (some would say certifiable) adrenaline-junkies. One famous story involves two English twins who were regular runners in the 1960s. One brother was getting badly gored in the thigh and the other, in trying to save him, succeeded only in getting viciously trampled and having one arm and several ribs broken. Early the next morning, when the staff at Navarra General Hospital turned their backs, the twins 'escaped.' Shortly after eight o'clock they were seen, rigid with plaster and bandages, hobbling up Calle Estafeta as fast as their remaining appendages would carry them!

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