A Morning's Pleasure: Running the Bulls at Pamplona (An Excerpt from Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain by Gerry Dawes)

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 Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010.
 

(All material, except for black & white photographs of the author in the encierro, copyright 2020 by Gerry Dawes.)

A Morning's Pleasure

 

Hemingway wrote about Pamplona’s running of the bulls, the encierro, in the Toronto Star Weekly in 1923: “Then they came in sight. Eight bulls galloping along, full tilt, heavy set, black, glistening, sinister, their horns bare, tossing their heads…They ran in a solid mass, and and ahead of them sprinted, tore, ran, and bolted the rearguard of the men and boys of Pamplona who had allowed themselves to be chased through the streets for a morning’s pleasure.”

 

Excerpted from 

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain
by Gerry Dawes copyright 2021.

 

On July 8, 1970, I ran the bulls in Pamplona and became entangled in on of the most memorable montones, or pile-ups, in the history of the encierro (running of the bulls.)   

This is my story of what happened to me and my friends, including American Matador-artist John Fulton, that day.

Running the bulls on the Estafeta.

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010.

Read the full story here