Nicaragua: Granada Bull Run

At the end of our Maranatha Nicaragua trip we had a day in the city of Granada to do some activities/sightseeing. In the morning I went zip lining and our guide told us that the yearly bull run celebration was that same day. We decided that it would be a great cultural experience to check it out and maybe even participate. I did not know what I was getting myself into. So later on that afternoon we headed out walking from our hotel towards the area where the bull run would be held. In a whole section of the city, bulls would be let out to roam the streets chasing and goring those dumb enough to get too close. The farther we walked the more and more crowded the streets became.  Every street edge and door way and window and wall and park area were jammed with spectators.

Ellen and a couple others from our group climbed up on tall wall on the street's edge, but there was no room there for Alex(andra), Dave and I and the others so we continued on walking down the street. All of a sudden everyone starting running around us, but as I made a start to run too, everything stopped.

They thought they were safe up in the tree, well check out the video below.

It was simply a false alarm, one more thing to get the adrenaline pumping. We made our way towards a band on the street side and watched locals dancing and waving beer cans showering sprays of alcohol on groups of shouting, cheering wild young men. The crowd was getting pumped.

There were a couple more false alarms, and we were beginning to wondering when the action would actually begin. I noticed some of the Nicaraguan guys staring at openly and someone from our group that we passed told us that when everyone starting running and pandemonium broke out, some Nicaraguans would try to rob the gringos. Sweat dripped down my face; the heat was oppressive. I stood in the middle of an intersection on my tiptoes trying to see if anything was happening up ahead. And then I saw an incredible surge of thousands of people begin racing towards us up the street. And we were right in the middle of it. I gripped Alex's hand. If I lost her in this huge crowd I would never find her again, I would be alone and I didn't even know how to get back to our hotel. The crowd swept us up rushing for our lives. It was run or get run over. Instantly we were separated from Dave, and I did not to see him again until back in the hotel that night.

Clinging with a death grip to Alex's hand, I tried not to run into people as people ran into me. I tripped and felt myself falling to the pavement and I imagined I would be trampled, but Alex's firm hand pulled me up. Flipflops probably had not been the best option of footwear. And where was the bull? And then I saw him, angry, large and not too far behind us. Hearts beating wildly we ran faster, jostling with the massive sweaty crowd towards the sidewalk and more out of harm's way. Not only were we the only white women running in the street, we were almost the only women in the street. Most, if not all, Nicaraguan women were 'safely' on the sidelines screaming and cheering. Men and boys taunted the poor bull, waving shirts, hitting and throwing things at him. Turning the bull ran up another street, but then there was another bull on our street, the crowd surging back and forth with the bull. Often as I tried to run to the side of the street hands would pull us over. I wasn't sure if they were trying to see if we had anything to pickpocket or trying to help us get out of the way of the raging bulls, maybe both. I had about 200 - 300 cordobas in my shorts pocket, equal to about 10-15 USD and after about 30 mins of running I noticed that my pocket was now empty! In the push of the crowd I hasn't felt a thing. Alex too was pickpocketed a little later.

Slowly we moved down the street, sometimes the bull was right there and other times there was nothing. But the suspense of not knowing when or where the bull would come from and not being able to see what was happening for the huge hordes of people was also a rush. And then a bull came barreling down the street behind us again and everyone was pushing and shoving into a open side area off the street. There were a few steps down and as hundreds of people tried to get off the street, 3 or 4 people right in front of Alex and I were knocked down the stairs and almost trampled. Amazingly the crowd parted around us as I feared we too would be pushed and fall down the steps. A bit away someone got gored by the bull and an ambulance came pushing through the crowd. I also saw someone get trampled by a horse.

By this time, Ellen was tired of taking pictures up on the wall and was ready to join in the action. Alex offered to take Ellen's camera back to the hotel with some others from our group so Ellen could run around with me. We tried to stay near one of the guy from our mission trip, Chris, but it was hard in such a massive surging crowd. 

At one point we were on a street that was lined with restaurants that had outdoor dining with tables, chairs and umbrellas on the street side. As a bull came barreling down the street, we all made a frantic rush to the side, knocking over chairs and tables. Some guy half pulled me over a table to get me out of the way. As Ellen and I sat on one of the tables watching the Nicaraguans taunt the now still bull, a group of guys began to harass us a bit, Chris noticing this, came over and told the guys in spanish to leave us alone. Apparently one of the guys then asked if Chris was married to Ellen. He responded that he was married to both of us, so to leave us both alone. The looks on the guys' faces was sooo hilarious - a mixture of surprise and awe! Chris confirmed that yes he was the man and would have told them he was mormon if he had know the spanish word for mormon. We continued on down the street trying to head in the general direction of our hotel (wherever that was), when again another bull came. Ellen and I rushed to the side of the street and tried to cram between two parked vehicles, but there were already so many people squished in between that we were kind of out in the street still. The bull was about 8-10 feet away and if he decided to come towards us, we would be trapped with no place to run. We would be toast. So when it seemed safe, we made a run for it to a more open sidewalk space. Within seconds after we moved, a man almost right where we had been before was gored in the neck/jaw by the bull. He fell to the ground blood gushing. Men rushed over and tried to pull and drag him out of the way, and in their hurry, dropped him again. As they carried him down the street a bit, his head hung back unsupported, concerning my first-aid certified self. All the women on the sidelines squeezed in trying to see and snap pictures on their cell phones. Chris, as an EMT/firefighter, helped carry the man and load him into the back of a pickup to take him to the hospital. With Chris gone now, it was just Ellen and I alone in the sea of men. By this time it was getting to be evening and most had been drinking for hours now. I decided it would be best for us to get back to our hotel. Only problem was, we had no idea where it was. All the rushing down different streets had thoroughly disoriented me, actually I just have no real good sense of direction as it is. We found a white man and asked him where our hotel was, and made our way back safe and sound. So it was probably one of the craziest days of my life - a wild, dangerous and exciting rush!