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“Pamplona is changed of course,” wrote Hemingway, during one of his last visits to the fiestas of San Fermin, “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.”

In the 1950s the San Fermin fiestas were still a relatively parochial affair in which the party was acted out within boundaries set by religion and decorum. Movie stars, artists and writers were doing their best to masquerade as bullfight aficionados, and tourists were being arrested for such trifles as dancing on tables or taking their shirts off in the bullring.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s the fiestas had become bigger and wilder and there were fears that the original religious and cultural aspects would be buried (or, more likely, swamped) under alcoholic decadence and general craziness. Last year 800,000 partygoers invaded this normally peaceful Spanish city (population 250,000) in a single day and an estimated three million litres of alcohol were consumed during the 204 hours of the fiesta. Eighty years after Hemingway first visited, Pamplona is more than ever deserving of the title of ‘hell-raising capital of the world.’

The most dramatic and infamous aspect of the fiestas are the encierros (bullruns) that take place every morning at 8am. Once simply seen as the most practical way of delivering the bulls from the holding pens to the bullring, these early-morning stampedes have provoked intense feelings ever since the first reckless souls had the idea of running in front of the horns rather than behind them.

Seasoned runners will tell you that there is no thrill that can compete with that feeling of bursting adrenalin as you sprint hell-for-leather in front of a herd of charging fighting-bulls. There are few places in the where such a totally irresponsible activity would ever be condoned in this day and age.

And that is just how it should be, say the bullrun’s growing legion of opponents. For the last five years campaigners from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been baring their all in an annual demonstration against the bullrun and bullfighting in general. On the 5th July (one day before the fiesta starts in earnest) a thousand naked demonstrators – most clad in no more than plastic horns and the traditional red bandanna – are expected to converge on Pamplona’s old town.
“What better way to protest how bulls get a bum rap than to bare your own bum?” say the event’s cheeky organisers on their website (www. RunningOfTheNudes.co.uk). “It’s about babes – not bulls. Hardly-dressed hotties and nearly-nude dudes – need we say more?”
PETA hope to convince Pamplona’s mayor to ban the bullrun. “Goring is boring!” they say. “The city doesn’t need to torture animals for tourism. The Running of the Bulls should be replaced with a festive humans-only race.”

Veteran American bull-runner and fiesta-addict Bruce Burnworth believes that PETA misunderstands bullfighting events and what he calls ‘their place in world heritage.’ He and his wife Bobbie have never missed a fiesta in more than 25 years and are members of an international group called ‘Los Amigos de Pamplona’ (Friends of Pamplona).

Somewhat surprisingly Bruce and Bobbie are also fully paid-up supporters of PETA. “All organisations have their weak points,” says Bruce, “and the encierro protests represent the misguided side of PETA. To remove or restrict one component of the fiesta diminishes the whole thing. Those that come to Pamplona know that they are entering a special place - a place of what you might call ‘world cultural heritage.’ Pamplona should resist pressure to become like so much of the world: worried about liabilities or an outsider’s disdain.”

An estimated 40,000 bulls are killed in Spanish bullrings each year but a recent Gallup poll showed that 69% of the country’s population has no interest in bullfighting. Several cities, including Barcelona, have banned the event and bullfighting would be on the decline in many others if it were not for the large numbers of tourists who are driven by curiosity to witness what is still seen by outsiders as an essentially Spanish ‘art-form.’

At worst bullfighting is a cruel and torturous blood-sport: at best an ancient and highly ritualised slaughter. (Because it is not a ‘contest’ between man and bull no Spaniard would ever describe bullfighting as a ‘sport’). The bull’s neck muscles are weakened by picadors’ lances and barbed banderilla spikes. Even the cape-work was originally designed to twist the bull so that his heavy head will lower enough for the matador to reach over the horns to make the kill.

The anti-bullfight league will tell you that they love the bulls and do not want to see them die: the bullfight supporters will tell you that they also love the bulls and do not wish to see them die out. (Extinction of the species as we know it is the only logical result of an overall bullfighting ban).

Love the bull-run or hate it. Run in front of the horns or stay behind the barriers. You make your own decisions but you owe it to yourself and the bulls to consider the implications before you commit. When it comes to the bullrun, people on both sides agree that this is no time to be sitting on the fence.

Spanish fiestas
With an average of nine radically different fiestas on any given day, Spain has every right to claim its place as Europe’s party nation, if not the world’s. Here are just a few of the summer’s craziest fiestas:

Battle of the Wine (Haro, 29th June): La Rioja has to be the perfect venue for a wine fight. Wineskins used to be the weapon of choice but in recent years tankers and fire engines have been brought in as ‘heavy artillery’! All participants and bystanders – along with most of the town – end up indelibly died with tinto.

La Tomatina: On the last Wednesday in August anarchy reins in the normally sleepy little town of Bunyol (near Valencia). The battle commences when one of the (usually drunken) revellers finally manages to collect a ham from the top of a greased pole. Fuelled by unparalleled quantities of sangria, an unbelievable blitzkrieg of 140tons of over-ripe tomatoes breaks out leaving the streets - and everything and everyone in them - knee-deep in pulp. The two-hour battle and the week of music, parades, dancing and fireworks that it is part of now draws more than 20,000 people.

San Antolin (Caparroso, Navarra, 2nd Sept.): The usual frenetic week of drinking and dancing…except that somewhere in the streets of this little village there is an enraged fighting cow, charging anything that moves!

Moors & Christians (El Campello, Alicante, 15th Oct.): Hundreds of costumed warriors parade through the town as a prelude to the great afternoon battle. The Christian victory comes as no surprise and both sides repair to the bars.

Fiesta of Smoke (Arnedillo, La Rioja, last Sunday in Nov.): St Andrés once delivered the people of Arnedillo from a terrible epidemic and purified the town with smoke. Every year scores of fires are lit in the narrow streets and the townspeople jump through the smoke to purify themselves…a mysterious local herb is burnt on the fires and the atmosphere has been described as ‘curiously stimulating.’

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