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Feature: How about bull running festival at night?

Xinhua, September 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The bull running festival in Medina del Campo in central Spain has been declared of National Tourist Interest, and is as old as the better known San Fermin fiestas in Pamplona.

However, the fiesta in Medina del Campo is very different. For a start, rather than running alongside the bulls, participants are mounted on horseback and drive the bulls from their holding pens in the country to the bullring in the heart of the city.

Hundreds of horsemen and women riding through the dry fields lift clouds of dust into the air as they cover the 5 km of open range into the town.

In Pamplona, the bulls run down a strictly fenced off route, but in Medina del Campo there are no barriers to stop the bulls which roam where they can: into gardens and houses and through the terraces of bars, sweeping all before them.

On Sept. 6 this year, three bulls (out of six) ran loose, with one entering the bullring through the back door, while the other two had to be transported by lorry after having run so far away the riders couldn't guide them back.

This event in a community in the region of Castilla and Leon, which has only 210,000 inhabitants, is as different as its historic monuments.

This is where Queen Isabel, who sponsored Colombus' expedition to America and set the foundations of a united Spain, spent many long periods.

The fiesta in Medina del Campo is also different from other places in Spain, given that it is celebrated not only in the morning, but sometimes in the night, giving it a ghostly, almost mysterious air.

As the book "Medina del Campo" explains, the bulls are run on three or four days with the Alba bulls run in the early morning.

While controversy over the cruelty and danger of these events persists, some offer different views.

Diego Velazquez, 29, says: "You have to respect all opinions, but you have to see the positive side of this: the art of bullfighting, the close exchange with the bull. Maybe people who are against it have never lived the passion as we have."

It should also be pointed out that so far in 2015, 12 people have died in Spain at various bull running events. The debate will continue as long as people want to run with bulls. Endit