Pamplona: ¡Chupinazo!

I can't wait to get here!

Awaiting the Rocket   (c) Getty Images
Today, thousands of revellers from around the world gathered in Pamplona Spain's main square, most dressed in the traditional white shirt and pants with red sash around their waists. In keeping with the tradition, at 12:00 noon, everyone held up their red bandannas as the mayor declared the official start of Fiesta de San Fermin. The chupinazo (rocket) was fired off to shouts of ¡Viva San Fermin!, everyone tied on their bandannas and the party was on. For the next 9 days, as they have since the year 1591, the streets will be drenched in Sangria as celebrants enjoy this fiesta made famous by the daily encierro and Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
Hopefully they'll save some Sangria for me. I arrive on Thursday afternoon and have shortened my trip to Portugal so I can be in Pamplona until Monday.

Here are a few pictures that I "borrowed" from the UK Daily Mail of today's festivities:

The Fiesta is Underway!   (c) AP

¡Viva San Fermin!   (c) AP

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sahara: Dunes & Dromedaries

Image
Two of us were missing. We were going to have to leave them behind. Perhaps they were hopelessly lost in the maze of alleys that make up the Marrakech medina. Or maybe, like thousands of others, the erupting Icelandic volcano had cruelly interrupted their trip. That they would choose not to show up is unimaginable. Still, we had delayed our departure for more than an hour and we had to move on. So began the most memorable stretch of the Great Odyssey (so far). I awoke that morning at 5 a.m. It was a full two hours earlier than necessary, but I was far too excited to sleep. I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the email from Omar popped onto my iPhone screen, confirming my spot on the excursion. Even if I had wanted to sleep a little longer, those damn chirping birds in the Dar Balthazar courtyard weren’t about to allow it. So, at 7 a.m. I ducked through the Hobbit-sized front door into the cobbled alleyway of Bab Doukkala, leaving behind yet another opulently decorated riad, w
Read more

Fes & Beyond: Melodies and Magic Carpets

Image
Fes Leather Tannery Fes Leather Shoes It was bound to happen and I suppose it’s not really a bad thing that it did. If I had any fear that my trip would peak too early, it was well warranted. For unknown reasons, I’m prone to habitually elevating my expectations – every new experience needs to be bigger or better than the one preceding it. After setting the bar so high during the Marrakech – Essaouira – Sahara legs of the Great Odyssey, a fall (or at least a plateau) from such great heights may have been inevitable. There are worse problems that one could endure. So it was that I arrived in Fes, exhausted from a few weeks travelling in a strange land, but exhilarated from one memorable experience after another. In hindsight, I’m quite sure that two days in Fes , Morocco’s third largest city, would have been sufficient. Instead, I struggled to re-capture the excitement I’d felt during the first three weeks. I stayed four days too long. My brother warned me that I’d have moments lik
Read more

One Night in Paris: Photos from the City of Light

Image
The Pyramid at the Louvre "After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe -- Paris, Venice, Rome -- collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only..." - Jay Gatsby As with all good things, this Great Odyssey of mine will soon draw to a close. Like Gatsby, I lived life in the greatest capitals of Europe and North Africa this year, even if only for a short while. After many months on the road and countless extraordinary, perhaps even life-changing experiences I will be returning to Canada in a few days. Even Odysseus eventually found his way back to Ithaca. Only time will tell what comes next. I joked along the way that once the hard drive on my Mac is full with photographs, it'll be time to return home. As I arrived in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, I was determined to capture the most beautiful memories in the precious few megabytes of space that I had left. Perhaps
Read more