Rocket blast signals start of running of the bulls

Related Photos

Revelers hold up traditional red neckties during the 'Chupinazo', the official opening of the 2012 San Fermin fiestas, Friday, July 6, 2012 in Pamplona, Spain. Revelers from around the world kick off the San Fermin festival with a messy party in the Pamplona town square, one day before the first of eight days of the running of the bulls. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
Revelers hold up traditional red neckties as tens of thousands of people packed Pamplona's main square in Pamplona, northern Spain, Friday, July 6, 2012 to celebrate the start of Spain's most famous bull-running festival with the annual launch of the "chupinazo" rocket. Perhaps best glorified by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises," the San Fermin festival is known around the world for the daily running of the bulls. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
A reveler is sprayed with water after the 'Chupinazo', the official opening of the 2012 San Fermin fiestas, Friday, July 6, 2012 in Pamplona, Spain. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

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July 6, 2012

Rocket blast signals start of running of the bulls

Elsa Fraile Associated Press Fri Jul 06, 2012, 02:12 PM EDT

PAMPLONA, Spain — Tens of thousands of revelers showered each other with sparkling wine and waved red kerchiefs Friday as the blast of a small rocket signaled the start of this year's running of the bulls.

Spain's most famous summer festival kicked off in the jam-packed and cobblestoned main square of the northern town of Pamplona. People from around the world, many wearing the traditional red kerchief and white shirt and pants, roared their approval as an official on a city hall balcony declared the San Fermin festival under way. He then lit the rocket, its boom echoing through the plaza.

Revelers sprayed each other with white wine, water and other liquids, and pelted each other with flour, making for a pasty but merry mess. Huge plastic balls used to advertise products and services bounced atop the crowd.

"It looked like a giant food fight," said Andrea Smith, 33, a member of the U.S. military stationed in Italy. A native of Coxsackie, New York, she had come to Pamplona on leave just to watch all the fun — not to test her luck with the 500-plus kilogram (1,100-pound) beasts that are the stars of the show.

Lindsay Erdall, a 25-year-old nurse from Montana, called the opening party "the craziest thing I have ever seen."

"I have been here for the setup, and now that it has started it is amazing. Not sure I will run because it is way too crowded," she said.

The first of eight runs in which daredevils dash through the streets with six powerful fighting bulls begins Saturday.

The bulls thunder along with six bell-tinkling steers meant to keep the bulls running in a pack, with the goal of making the run safer. An isolated bull can get spooked and disoriented, becoming much more likely to charge at people.

Since record keeping began in 1924, 15 people have been killed by bulls in the early morning festival runs. The most recent such tragedy came in 2009 when a young Spaniard was gored in the neck as he tried to escape a bull by sliding feet-first under a fence separating the course from the crowd watching the run. It was the first death at San Fermin in nearly 15 years.

The party honoring San Fermin, the patron saint of Pamplona, was immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises."

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Daniel Woolls contributed to this report from Madrid.