After facing death on the streets of Pamplona...

Posted on Thu, Apr 08, 2010

..every other challenge in life seems trivial. The experience of bringing your life to a point, of not knowing whether “this was it or there will be a tomorrow” makes everything seem very clear. Our founder says about himself that after Running with the Bulls in Pamplona, he was able to start taking risks in life. He quit an unfulfilling job because he was not longer in need for the security, and started traveling, in search for a purpose.

Many people who come to the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona know that Ernest Hemingway, too was a great aficionado of the festival and especially, of Bullfights. Hemingway was obsessed with bullfighting and especially the Running of the Bulls. He visited himself 7 years in a row, always staying in the Gran Hotel La Perla, in a room that has a balcony overlooking Calle Estafeta Street, where the bull run each morning in the encierro.

Anyone who has been to the Running of the Bulls or just Pamplona, will recognize many places, sceneries and situations described in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. It is a book about lost people, who spend their time in cafes and bars, more often drunk than sober, adrift and purposeless. The protagonist Jake is one of them but Jake is also an aficionado. Literally, one-who-has-passion. Aficionados understand that ‘Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters’ . To them, life has become precious after facing death one morning in the streets of Pamplona, or in the afternoon, facing a bull in the Plaza de Toros.

To learn more about bullfights, running with the bulls or simply the sanfermin festival, study our blog entries and video guide.

We have gathered many years of experience at the running of the bulls in Pamplona and know many people who can help you find balconies on estafeta and mercaderes as well as bullfight tickets and apartments or hotels.

We also now included a map of the bull run through the streets of pamplona, spain. You can view the bull run map here.