I got gored

Yesterday, Emily, Alexis and I went to the running of the bulls in Logroño. We ran at the beginning, which was similar to Pamplona except that the lane was so much shorter the bulls doubled back and had to run it twice. Then after the bull fights, Alexis asked me if I wanted to go into the ring with the bull and I said yes so we went in.

I felt incredibly small and open to attack but I was already in the ring so it was too late to back out. Well, I guess it wasn´t really but I´m just stubborn. So we were in the middle of the arena and the bull had his back to me when suddenly he turned and charged at me and I didn´t have enough time to run away. I got caught between his horns and he would´ve chucked me except I didn´t want to go flying so I grabbed tight onto his horns and I think he shook his head violently a few times to try and dislodge me. Eventually the professional ring people managed to distract him and I didn´t get trampled on, which was my one big fear. They evicted me from the ring because they´re sexist and chauvinistic and they don´t really allow girls to go in (I was the only girl in there). They also probably thought I was under 16 which I think is the minimum age to enter because they asked me how old I was and later a policeman came by looking apoplectic and asked me how old I was as well but he calmed down when I said 22. Still, the same thing happened to a guy on Saturday and after he picked himself up and shook himself off he jumped right back in. Bah!

Afterwards, everyone kept stopping me on the streets asking me if I was the girl who was in the ring. I´m famous! Poor Alexis said he turned around because he saw someone had got caught by the bull and nearly had a heart attack when he realised it was me. Mel was taking photos for us but when she saw me getting caught up she froze and wasn´t able to take any photos. A photographer stopped me later though and showed me the photos he´d taken and I asked him if he could email them to me but since he´s Spanish (and they usually don´t do what they say they will), I´m doubtful about ever getting these pictures.

So- I didn´t technically get gored but it was insane to see a bull so close up. And actually it was only a baby bull, about one or two years old. They don´t even call them toros because they´re too small at that stage; I think they´re called vaquillas.