I walked into Viana where a festival of some sort seemed to be happening, and I was told that there was going to be a bullfight in a couple of hours and that the bulls would be running through the streets in another hour or so. A running of the bulls!!! I wasn't in Pamplona, but by golly, I wanted to see some bulls run! I wasn’t so excited about the bullfight itself which seems cruel, but watching bulls running through the streets chasing after idiots that would be stupid enough to join them seemed like fun. So a group of us pilgrims hung around just outside of the church to wait for the running of the bulls.
I caught up with Vivian again here. “Our streak of seeing each other every day since Saint Jean is still going strong!”
We knew the running of the bulls was going to happen soon when the streets started to empty and gates were being set up across all of the windows along the street.
Huh?
Apparently, some Finnish guys had started calling me “Ryan Air” because I was hiking so fast. (Which, frankly, since I decided not to hike to Lisbon in Saint Jean, I haven’t really been hiking very far or fast each day anymore.)
“They said you were hiking so fast because you’re trying to meet up with your son further down the trail.”
Woah. Where the heck do rumors like this start?!!! My eyes might have bugged out a little.
“I have a son?” This was BIG NEWS to me! “I think you must have me confused with someone else,” I told the girl.
“But you’re Ryan? And you started hiking from Le Puy? And you thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail?”
“Well, yes…..”
“Then it’s you!” she insisted.
I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say.
Finally, the first bull came running through the street. Running might be a slight exaggeration. A slow trot might be more accurate, and he seemed curious about his surroundings, stopping to look at people along the route. Others tried to get the bull to move, but he’s often refuse, content standing where he was. It wasn’t particularly exciting or interesting, to tell you truth, and the pilgrim next to me described it as the running of the disinterested bull, which is where I got the title for this post. =)
My question was answered a few minutes later when the same bull came running back in the opposite direction this time. Ah, okay, no loop then. But still? That was it? Much ado about nothing….
Then the bull came back again, this time with a friend. The bulls ran back and forth for about an hour or so, the herd of them getting larger throughout the hour. Some of the times, they actually ran and stupid people with red scarves ran ahead and behind me with them. Once, and only once, we saw one of the runners get a bull’s horn in his ass, but it was a glancing blow. I was taking static photos at the time and missed the event on my video. Shoot! That would have been awesome if I could have gotten it on video. The fellow rubbed his butt, but otherwise seemed completely unharmed by the incident.
Eventually, though, the running of the bulls came to an end, the protective gates were opened, chairs and tables were repositioned outside, and people filled the streets again.
I stopped in Logrono for a couple of hours trying to find the others who planned to camp out for the night. I found Maria, from Sweden, but she decided to bug out worried that the overhanging clouds looked like rain.
I didn’t cook dinner—it was already so late that I didn’t want to mess around with that—and the campsite was really wonderful. Despite how busy the trails around us were, the top of this hill was fairly secluded and quiet. My only complaint was that we could hear some of the traffic noise from the highway, but at least we were far enough away from them that it wasn’t especially loud. Definitely loud enough to hear, but not so loud as to be particularly disturbing.
After the sun set and it got really dark, I went back to the viewpoint and tried looking for any suspicious headlamps moving around in the trees below us. I figured that was probably our best bet for finding our missing campers. I did see some lights moving around, but they seemed more like lights on a house or people walking along the paths in the area, not camper lights. Maybe in the morning I’d find the rest of them….
Three bulls chase after this idiot….
One bull had a red balloon attached to its horns.
You just know that one had to have been embarrassed.
I imagined the bull was thinking, “How humiliating! Now
you must die!”
The trail is pretty well marked most of the time. I took
this photo because I liked the little pilgrim statue in the wall here. =)
A pedestrian bridge across a river.
This graffiti was under a bridge. Talk about planning early, though!
This pilgrim party wasn’t scheduled until July 25, 2018!
I’ll put it on my calendar now! =) Oh, wait, there aren’t
any calendars that far into the future yet!
I liked the Camino markers through Logrono, even if the
yellow arrows still look like graffiti. =)
I hang out with some other pilgrims along
the trail in Logrono. =)
Logrono is one of the bigger towns along the trail. Definitely
no small podunk! It’s a major city!
The trail leaves Logrono on a freakishly long park which I
suspect used to be a railroad but was turned into a trail for
pedestrians. This is a bridge along that section, on the way out of town.
Sunset over the reservoir.
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