I checked at least one of those "things I should do before I die, but not die in the process" off my list: Running with bulls in Spain. The event was at San Blas, a Carnaval festival where everyone uses the quickly arriving Lent as an excuse to drink excessively and take uncalled-for risks with bulls.
We went to Ciudad Rodrigo, a small medieval-era walled town in the southwestern corner of Salamanca Province, about 1 hour from Salamanca. They are famous for having a huge fiesta (party) on the weekend before Lent, including a bull running and a bullfight.
For the bull run, an entire street is barricaded rather cleverly with bull-proof bars between all the doorways and side streets. Then a group of bulls is let loose at the end of the street, with the other end being the bullring at the center of town. Anyone over the age of 18 can be in the street when the bulls are set loose.
That's not all, though--rather than just stay the heck away from the bulls (as I did, don't worry Mom), it is apparently a Spanish obligation, especially if drunken and male, to taunt the bulls in amateur bullfighter fashion. It's also part of the tradition to dress up for Carnaval/San Blas into your penha, or club, outfit.
The combinations of these cicumstances explains how it's possible to see a group of grown men dressed as Smurfs taunting an angry bull in Ciudad Rodrigo on the weekend before Lent:
Danger, danger, danger.
[Insert clever caption about bulls and asses here.]
Nobody died, three were gored (that's human blood on the ground), one badly enough to be rushed to the regional hospital in Salamanca.
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