Sunday before last Rich and I caught a bus down to London as the start of a trip to Pamplona, in the Basque Country (not Spain... but technically Spain).

The two and a half hour bus trip to London was just an appetiser for the 22 hours from London to Zarautz starting Monday midday. And with no air con it was not the best. But we were greeted on arrival in London by Kaz, Morgs, Benny, Stacey and others with beers in the park. After some Indian from the place next to their apartment in Hammersmith with got some sleep for the long trip to Pamps.

A ferry trip from Dover to Calais broke up the long trip but didn't help with sleep deprivation. The bus was full of Aussies, South Africans and Kiwis as tends to be the case the world over on any sort of tour involving young people. Upon arrival in Zarautz we were taken to our tents, provided by the tour company already set up.

We found our way to the beach straight away for some long awaited body-surfing action. The beach was fantastic long, good sand, decent waves, scenic backdrop of the Pyrenees petering out, just what was needed to forget about the dirty scousers in Liverpool.

Zarautz was the town where we camped and was about an hour bus ride away from Pamplona. The first night we spent out in the town around Zarautz becoming more fluent in Spanish as the night went on. The next morning all knowledge of the Spanish language dropped back to "hola senior" and "donde esta el bano" (where is the toilet).

The San Fermin festival kicked off with everyone donning white. We then all bought several bottles of champagne and sangria each and made our way through the crowds to the town square where the real action is. The town square is packed. People singing and shouting. Eggs, flour, water, champagne, sangria and some weird mixture of breadcrumbs, cheese and ham were all sent flying. The champagne was especially fun to spray around. The white clothes soon become a grotty reddish pink colour with the generous pourings of sangria spread around.

That first day was probably the best. All the Spanish and Basque people and the tourists were having a great time. Not too say that the mood changed later in the week but it was just new and exciting at the start. At 12pm the rockets went off to start the San Fermin Festival. Everyone took the red bandanna from their wrist and held it up to the church in the town square and shouted "San Fermin, San Fermin, San Fermin!". After a few minutes of this, everyone put the

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