Running of the cows

I saw the running of the cows last week. Some of you may be familiar with the more famous and, some would say more impressive but what do they know, Running of the Bulls during the San Fermin festival in Pamplona. Well i was not in Pamplona but in Laguardia a tiny pueblo in the foothills of the Pyrenees. I was not there to see the running of the cows but rather to taste some wine because Lagaurdia is wine country (actually most of Spain is wine country which is why its cheaper than water here). Nevertheless, it happened and I saw it.

It may not have been the highlight of my first two weeks indeed I doubt it was anyones highlight of anything but it was a first for me. Let me paint the picture for you. I emerge into the sunlight, along with a bus load of other spanish language students, from the cellar tour of a local winery. The tour had left 90% of the students none the wiser about the niceties of the wine making process of the Basque Country as most of them are beginners and our guide was incapable or simply unwilling to dumb his lifes work down to one clause sentences in the present tense, but it had left them with a raging thirst and so we headed to the local bars.

The first sign that something was UP was the installation of crash barriers along the narrow streets and the local crowd eagerly peering at an empty street. Wine in hand we decided to wait and see what was to happen and before long, much to my bemusement, some of the least impressive heffers i've ever seen scurried up the street to screams of excitement (that the heffers met with streams of excrement). No sign of drunken youths running from their dubious threat nor matadors waiting to dispatch them, in tight pants - just cows and poo. You couldn't help but be enchanted.

I now sit on my balcony waiting to go out and see off the first of my fellow students to leave. Within three weeks almost everyone I have befriended here will have gone home, holidays over leaving me with some happy memories of the first hectic three weeks and a mission to make friends with the none-too-friendly locals...I like a challenge. Ad