ContinueTomorrow starts the annual San Fermin Festival in Pamplona and for those who have run with the bulls it means an eight-day period of high adrenalin, stress, fear, joy and alcohol.
What was a little-known summer festival became globally renowned after Ernest Hemingway featured it in a best-selling book in the 1960s but in recent years it has become especially popular with travelling people from around the world who want to tick this particular box in their lifetime achievements.
Tomorrow at 8 a.m. Spanish time (7 a.m. in the UK) the sound of a rocket will denote the releasing of the bulls and anyone who has tasted this unique experience before will then have that dry feeling in their mouths as their heart beat skips to a greater beat.
The bravados will stand in the middle of the streets and get the hell out of the way as soon as the rampaging bulls appear. The afficionados will lean against the walls and then converge in the centre to run, with luck, alongside the jandillas and the other herds that will charge down estefeta and telefonica.
How health and safety still allows it to happen God only knows it and I suspect it may not go on for too much longer, but for now 1,000 people per morning will experience the adrenalin rush of their lives, before assembling in the main town square to drink pacharan and regale tales to each other before the thudding realisation hits them that they have it all to do again 24 hours' later.
I have run eight times with the bulls and had one, particular near miss which those who witnessed it, including a group of Americans, still remind me to this day.
I shan't be there tomorrow, or indeed this year, but my thoughts go out to the real characters of Pamplona, men such as the American Joe Distler, and of course to the bulls.
Like it or not, agree with it or not, it's there, it's happening and for 2 crazy minutes tomorrow morning Pamplona becomes the maddest place on earth. As Joe would say, "suerte, baby."
