On the morning of the 5th, we were off and running by 6:30am to catch the early train to Pamplona. When we finaly did arrive, we set out in search of the towns center so that we could get our bearings down and have an idea of where the festivities would be taking place. (the thing you got to realize in europe is that in almost every country you can communicate with ease, because the majority of people seemingly have some understanding of english. However, we found out quickly that Spain was the exception to the rule. The spanish people didn't even attempt to understand us, and that made it somewhat difficult for us to get around.) Fortunitly for us, we located somone in Pamplona as soon as we got there who knew enough broken english to point us in the right direction. In fact, he explained to another man what we were wanting, and the other fellow willingly walked us all over town showing us where the run would take place. Even though neither of us could understand what the other was saying, we found our common ground through hand gestures and nods. After we parted ways, we grabbed a bit for lunch and discussed where we would sleep for the next two nights. (Durring the week of San Fermin it is impossible to find an empty bed unless you book one way in advance, and if you were lucky enough to actually find one the rates are five times what they would normaly be.) My suggestion was to do what the rest of the the bedless people were doing and just throw our bed rolls out in the center of the town park, but for safty reasons no one else was on board...lol! So we jumped on a bus and headed to a campground outside of town. Every Australian on a walkabout must have known about that campground because we shared it with about two thousand of them. On the morning of the 6th Aaron and I woke early, so that we could have enough time to clean up and catch the transit into town before the San Fermin opening cerimonies began. Miles wanted to spend the day relaxing, so he stayed behind at the campground. When we arrived down town the streets were filling up quickly with people dressed in white with red sashes. We started to work our way into the crowed, pressing our way to the center. We had to pass through several check points where police officers were going through bags and pating people down. They were taking things from poeple to keep them from throwing them onto the crowds, such as: Sangriea, mustard, ketchup, eggs, etc. Once I figured out what was going on, Aaron and I quickly worked our way back out of the center in hopes of not getting plastered with anything nasty. We found a nice area off to the side and watched as the gun fired off. It was quite a spectacle of white and red garments, sprays of liquids into the air, mustard and katchup everywhere, people dumping water from balconies, Ambulances and police officers speraticly hauling people away, and poeple doing stupid and crazy things. Once it was over, Aaron and I worked our way through the nasty sticky crowed of people and did one last walk through on The Way Of The Bulls. We walked it so that I could get one last look at the route, before I got after it in the morning. After we were finished in town, we went back to the campgrounds for a nice swim, and spent the rest of the day relaxing with Miles. On the morning of the 7th, we woke at 4:00am so that we could catch the earliest bus to town. Our friend Liz whom we met up with in Granada took an overnight bus up to Pamplona to watch the run. At the bus station Miles stayed and waited for her while Aaron and I went on since I had to be thier by 7:00. At the running course Aaron and I found a nice place for him to view the run, so we dropped our packs where he could keep an eye on them and still watch the run. From there I worked my way past the barricades onto the course. It didn't take long before hordes of people packed into the course area. I talked for a while with other runners and watched as anticipation was building up. Before the gun went off the police did one last sweep through the mass of people trying to remove all the drunks from the course. BOOM! Off went the first gun! You could see and feel the emotions and adrenaline come pouring in over the runners and spectators. Some of the runners already started running at this point, but I kept my ground and waited. BOOM! Off went the second gun! Now people really started moving, and me as well. I ran for a distance and watched over my shoulder as the bulls quickly approched. The next thing I knew, the man in front of me took a nose dive into the pavement, causing me to trip up landing on top of him, driving my knee into the pavement as well (Rule number #1 in the bull run, if you go down stay down or risk getting gored). As I layed there, I turned to my left and watched the bulls running franticly by while the participants were jumping and leaping out of the way. It was over and my first thought was "Wow, send some more"! From there I limped my way up to Aaron, where we grabbed our packs and set off in search of Miles and Liz. Regretfully we didn't have much time to spend with Liz, but we did manage to squeeze in lunch. After that we hoped on the train, and were off to Paris.