Pamplona - Running of the Bulls

Pamplona was insane.
The campsite was a constant party that consisted almost completely of Australians, with only a few New Zealanders, Americans, and English thrown in.
We mainly kept away from the big tour groups full of Australians, but we did make a few friends, a couple of Americans and a group of a few English guys. Everyone was nice and just loving being in the place.

The Running of the Bulls festival (San Fermin) begins with a big celebration at noon the day before the first bulls run.
We decided to head into the city to witness this, and it was absolutely crazy!
Every person was dressed in white with a red scarf and waist tie, and everyone was drunk on sangria already. Thousands of people were crammed into the tiny streets of the old city. Sangria was being sprayed everywhere, within about three minutes I had already had beer and sangria spilt and sprayed all over me. What used to be white clothing was now a faded pink colour. You could tell how long people had been there by how pink their shirts were.
At one stage, all of a sudden the whole pack spread and started running back up the street. Later on we realised a small riot type thing had broken out, and police in full riot gear had been pushing us back.
When the festival officially began, there was a big count down before the whole city shouted 'Viva San Fermin!' together.

The next morning we were wandering through the city towards the stadium and we were passing through on of the grossest things I have ever seen. It was 7am and people were walking the streets completely inebriated or just passed out on whatever patch of grass was closest. The streets were lined with broken plastic cups and all kinds of rubbish, your feet stuck to the ground as you walked from all the sangria!
At 8am the first bull run took place. We bought tickets for the stadium and were able to watch the run on screens, before the runners were herded into the arena and young's bulls were released.
The stadium was amazing, again everyone in white and red, and everyone was yelling and celebrating.
The run only lasted a minute or so, but was brutal. The bulls that ran were all at least 500kg and looked very angry.

Once the runners make it into the stadium the doors are closed and the older bulls are put away. Then after they have celebrated completing the 850m run, young and very very angry bulls are released into the arena one at a time.
This was absolutely crazy!
People in the arena with the bulls would run past and tap them and wave flags and things in front of their faces, trying to get them to charge. The bulls were crazy, they ran at people and quite often it was unexpected and the people went flying. It was incredibly brutal. People were hit hard, and when they fell they had to scramble to get away from the horns of the bull coming back at them.
We saw two people get trampled when  bulls were released, one got a hoof to the face, and both left the arena unconscious.

It was a crazy thing to see first hand, one of those things where it kind of makes you feel ill watching, but you can't bring yourself to look away.
Though some aspects of the festival didn't suit us very well, we had a great time and it was an experience we are both incredibly glad we have to look back on.