Travels in Spain With Gerry Dawes

28/08/2024

Fiestas de San Fermín, A Very Personal Take on the Fiesta July 6-14, 2024

While I was originally drawn to Las Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona by Ernest Hemingway´s The Sun Also Rises and to an even greater degree by James A. Michener´s non-fiction best seller Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections and I have spent a great deal of the previous 18 sanfermines I have attended with the foreign contingent, at San Fermín 2024, I decided I was going to spend the majority of my time with Pamplonicas, Navarros and Spaniards, at least until my life companion, my novia Kay arrived on July 10 and then I was more worried about how she was going to aguantar spending a lot of time talking to the foreign group of lovers of San Fermín. I have known many of the foreign contingent for decades and had a river of oft-told oral histories and tales, a stream in which I knew Kay would soon become tired of treading water. And, as veteran sanferminera JuneRose Conlin told me in a message, Spending more time with the Spaniards is great. So many of “our group” are no longer there and many of those left come just for the beginning first two to three days and then leave.”

Staying at the home of Carmen Rodríguez Purroy on calle Cortes de Navarra put me in the middle of everything and at 10:00 on July 6, when Carmen knocked on my door (after I had arrived from Madrid at 03:00) and told me that I had to get dressed to go with her to a street breakfast, I was off to a good start. At the breakfast, among the some 30-40, there were not foreigners, no guiris except for me.
After breakfast, she led me a couple of blocks over to Restaurante El Burladero, next to the bullring, where she introduced me to my friend-on-the-internet only, writer Miguel Izu, with whom I had been corresponding and sharing research on some Hemingway topics that were of great interest to both of us. Miguel Izu is a major writer of books on Pamplona and los sanfermines and perhaps the world´s greatest debunker of Hemingway myths in Spain.

During San Fermín 2024, I had a great number of experiences that were new to me after all these years, including the all-Pamplonica street breakfast, attending corridas in the mostly Navarran sombra sections in the Plaza de Toros, with family members visiting the tombs in the main cemetery of Pamplona of my old friend the late José Ramón Jorajurria and his wife Paquita Martín’s uncle the legendary Juanito Quintana, who was Hemingway’s model for Montoya in The Sun Also Rises.

Key to my personal sanfermines is Restaurante Europa, where I did not eat every day due to the scarcity of available reservations and financial considerations, since this Michelin-starred restaurant, likely the best in Pamplona, is deluged with regulars and famous visitors during fiesta, many of whom I knew. However, I have been well acquainted with family members and director of the front of the house Juan Mari Idoate and last year I became acquainted with his sister, Chef Pilar Idoate, whom during the course of the fiesta I developed a serious (and often quite humorous) relationship.
I also decided early on that I was not going to battle the crowds to get reservations at a number of restaurants where I had eaten during previous sanfermines. I had only been twice in the past twenty years so I had lost all my enchufe and ability to get reservations, so I just concentrated on two places, Restaurant Europa and El Burladero, where I took most of my meals with forays into such places at el Buho and La Olla, the writers lunch at El Torreón del Castillo, lunch with my Anaitasuna family at their clubhouse and tapas and breakfast at La Mandarra de la Ramos in calle San Nicolas.

I also did several things that were on my San Fermín bucket list such as visiting the Corrales de Gas bull pens, where the toros bravos (fighting bulls) are kept before being run up the street around 22:30 to the corrals on Santo Domingo, where they will be let out at 08:00 the following morning to run the encierro to the bullring. (Because an invite from my Navarran Jorajurria-Martín family, Kay and I watched the Miura encierro on July 14 from an apartment overlooking the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and Calle Mercaderes.)

Also high on my list was visiting and photographing the famous Churrería La Mañueta, which I accomplished in spades with members of the Jorajurria-Martín family. I also had the privilege of being invited to present in Spanish at Pamplona’s Izquierda Unida de Navarra headquarters, my three Hemingway PowerPoint presentations, which I would later present at The Hemingway Society Conference in San Sebastián after the Fiestas de San Fermín: Hemingway and Burguete (his trout fishing base for the scenes in The Sun Also Rises), The Myth of Restaurante Botín in Madrid and Hemingway: A Few Degrees of Separation (people that both Hemingway and I had in common—Juanito Quintana, Antonio Ordoñez, Peter Viertel, Kenneth Tynan, Valeria Hemingway, American Matador John Fulton, Iberia photographer Robert Vavra, Hugh Millais and more).

These first two encounters in my San Fermín 2024 would set the tone for the rest of the fiesta and would be the pattern for our excursion late in July to the Fiestas de Santa Ana in Tudela in southern Navarra, which I had long suspected might be most like the Fiestas that Hemingway encountered when he first attended San Fermín in the mid-1920s, in other words, a Navarra fiesta with very few foreigners. As you will read soon, what I encountered was beyond my wildest fantasies.

Though in previous fiestas, I had spent most of my time with the foreigners, the guiris, many of whom are the spiritual descendants* of the Lost Generation of The Sun Also Rises, I would spend most of the fiesta with Pamplonicas, including Carmen and her family--her son and daughter and their cousins and friends at her home--then with a series of events and encounters that were almost exclusively Spanish. The foreign contingent is not nearly what it was in years past.

I did do a deep dive into Guirilandia, when I attended the Gutter Club vodka party on July 8, the American Party in the Plazuela de San José on July 9 (where I barely dipped my toe in the waters and spent most of my time with some new Navarra friends who were having a street lunch alongside), the writers breakfast on July 10 (where there were as many Spanish writers as foreigners) and the Día de los Guiris at Hotel La Perla on July 11.

(*During my early years at los sanfermines in the 1970s, many of these people, both Spaniards and foreigners had even had direct contact with Ernest Hemingway during The Dangerous Summer years of 1959 and 1960.)

Portions of these posts will appear, edited and revised, in Volume II of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain (Volume I with the Foreword by José Andrés is available on Amazon), which will feature stories from The Basque Country and Navarra, and will include los sanfermines, profiles of many of the regulars, some of them legendary, I have known at San Fermín since my first fiesta in 1970, adventures in the villages of the Navarran Pyrenees and an exclusive report on the magical fiestas de Santa Ana in Tudela, plus musings on jotas, the wonderful folk singing, dancing and music of Navarra, Aragón, La Rioja and The Basque Country.

These are some of the photos of my encounters with los sanfermines de los Pamplonicas. More will follow.

#1 July 6 El Burladero Pamplona writer Miguel Izu, whom I was meeting for the first time, they we had been corresponding about Ernest Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises for month and talked on video messaging. He is with Carmen Rodríguez Purroy, in whose home on calle Cortés de Navarra I stayed during San Fermín. Miguel Izu recommended Carmen to me when I inquired about a place to stay in the center of Pamplona. Meeting and getting to know Carmen and her family and staying in her home was an incredible stroke of good luck, which more than compensated for the bad luck I had in missing my ride to Pamplona on the evening of July 5.

#2 Bar July 7 Bar Anaitasuna. With Paquita Martín, niece of Juanito Quintana, niece of the legendary Juanito Quintana, who was Hemingway’s model for Montoya in The Sun Also Rises. I first met Paquita and her husband the late José Ramón Jorajurria, when my late former wife Diana and I got our abonos in their Peña Anaitasuna section in la Plaza de Toros in 1971. We renewed our friendship after a two decade-long hiatus and I spent considerable time with Paquita and her extended family during San Fermín.

#3 July 9 Restaurante Europa, with Chef Pilar Idoate in her kitchen.

#4 July 14, La Churrería La Mañueta, Fermin y Elias Elizalde, Enrique Jorajuria and Kay Balun.

#5 July 13 After my Hemingway lecture in castellano Spanish at Izquierda Unida de Navarra in Pamplona. Only Pamplonicas were in attendance. (Photograph courtesy of Enrique Jorajuria.)

28/08/2024

July 9, 2024 More Pamplona People

98 years after the publication of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the Fiestas de San Fermín beat goes on.

More images from La Plaza del Castillo.

Some of the regulars, American, European and Spanish, who sometimes can be found hanging out at the Windsor Bar or around the Hotel Perla.

Ana Cerón, long-time sanferminera and wife of Larry Belcher.

Rafael Moreno, owner of Hotel La Perla.

Bullrunner and sanferminero Angus Ritchie.

Larry Belcher, writer and long-time sanferminero.

27/08/2024

98 years after the publication of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the Fiestas de San Fermín beat goes on.

More images from La Plaza del Castillo.

Some of the regulars, American, European and Spanish, who hang out at the Windsor Bar.

Tim Hatfield "Leroy", long-time veteran at los sanfermines.

Spanish bullrunner, mute and friend to many of the veterans at San Fermín, JoséAntonio Sanz.

Tim Hatfield "Leroy" and veteran bullrunner and figure at los sanfermines, Joe Distler.

Peter C. Re*****on and Karen Re*****on, who were going to give me a ride to Pamplona before Madrid City Hall intervened and screwed traffic so badly that I could not join them at the Madrid airport.

These spiritual descendants of Hemingway´s characters in The Sun Also Rises are a major part of the enduring appeal of las Fiestas de San Fermín.

27/08/2024

July 8, 2024

More images of San Fermín. The Gutter Club.

In 2020, I organized a Taste of Hemingway’s Spain Tour, which I was going to lead with John Hemingway, but we had never met in person. The tour had to be cancelled because of the COVID pandemic.

A Taste of Hemingway’s Spain, July 16 – 27, 2020 With John Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s Grandson. A Customized Adventure Designed, Organized & Led by Spanish Gastronomy, Wine & Culture Expert / Hemingway Aficionado Writer-Photographer Gerry Dawes

I finally met John this year at the Gutter Club gathering on July 8th.
Other people I photographed at the Gutter Club gathering 2024: Merche Cerrolazo García, Tim Pinks, Rick Musica, Robert Kiely, Junerose Conlin and Junerose and friends.

27/08/2024

Pamplona, San Fermín, July 8, 2024 The Adventure Continues. (Part Two)

Photographs of the bust of Ernest Hemingway, with Superman in the background, at the Plaza de Toros de Pamplona, translation (with some help from Google Translator) and parenthetical commentary by Gerry Dawes.

From Noticias de Navarra (May 5, 1919, article by Mikel Sola)

Superman behind the Hemingway statue at the Pamplona bullring
Why is Superman in the Pamplona bullring?

The artist LKN recreates the superhero with the face of Fernando Lizaur, who on July 8, 1979 'flew' down the street with a suit of this character

"What is Superman doing hanging in the Pamplona bullring? Since May 5, the fifth step of the San Fermin escalón (the 1 de enero, 2 de febrero, etc. countdown to the beginning of las Fiestas de San Fermín on July 7), a canvas (large photograph) decorates the entrance to the callejón (the tunnel that leads into the bullring), but the face of the famous superhero does not resemble any actor who plays his role in movies or series.

July 8, 1979. First anniversary of the death of Germán Rodríguez. In the bullring, there was a tense calm instead of a festive atmosphere. The shots of Policia Armada, (GD: the Armed Police who killed Germán Rodríguez in 1978, provoking riots that shut down the fiestas that year) still echoed in the arena, the ferocious charges (of the police) were still etched in the retina.

The tension dissipated in the second bull. Lizaur burst onto Tendido Six (the spectator stands in the Sol sections of la Plaza de Toros) dressed in a Superman suit that he had ordered from friends in California.

“We had to recover what had been ruined last year in such a sudden and sad way. I wanted to bring joy back to the city, but I didn't know how. I was thinking about it and when I saw the Superman movie in February, which was a bomb (a huge movie hit), it occurred to me. It was clear to me,” he recalls.

Lizaur climbed onto the balustrade and the audience stopped looking at the arena. Applause. Ovation. Shouts of “Superman, Superman!” “The cachondos in the peñas (the rowdy club members who then raised Hell in the Tendidos for the entire corrida) wanted more and started shouting ‘Let Superman fly, let Superman fly!’ We had to please them, so I listened to them,” he recalls.

The superhero warned his friends, members of the Peña Anaitasuna (social club), that he was going to jump, he asked them to place their arms to cushion the fall and to pass him by. “There was the miracle because people cheered up and I jumped and was flying along the rows of the tendido (he was caught when he jumped by his Anaitasuna friends and was then flown [passed by the crowd} down the rows of the tendidos del Sol),” he explains.

As he flew, the bullring asked him to jump into the ring and kill the bull. “From the top of the barrier, I held a democratic consultation and gained time for the bullfighter to finish his faena,” he points out. Superman finally landed in the presidential box, hugged the president, PSN councilor Pérez Balda, and greeted the public.

On July 8, 2019, it was 40 years since Superman's flight. That afternoon, Lizaur dressed up again, but could not repeat his performance. The torrential rain, which caused serious flooding in Navarra, prevented this.

Three years later, Lizaur learned that the Casa de Miseracordia had commissioned from the artist known as LKN, the artistic recreation of his Superman now displayed at the bullring (right behind the bust of Ernest Hemingway). “I had no idea, I found out because they sent me a photo on WhatsApp. “I am very proud and grateful,” he commented.

The success of the 1979 performance, he confesses, lay in secrecy. For this reason, it does not reveal whether there will be a show for the centenary of the bullring and if we will see Superman fly again. We will have to keep an eye on the sky.”

Mil gracias to Pamplona author Miguel Izu for sending this article to me.

Photos of the famous Hemingway bust at bullring in Pamplona, for many people the base is just a place to rest while waiting for friends. It has become a meeting point.

24/08/2024

Pamplona, San Fermín, July 8, 2024 The Adventure continues.

On the morning of July 8, I went to Café Iruña to try to photograph the statue of Ernest Hemingway in the side bar el Rincón de Hemingway before they turn the Café into a discotheque and it would be impossible. The girl at the bar tells me that el Rincón de Hemingway is closed during San Fermín, but I persist, so she called the manager, Juan. I told him I needed photos of the statue for Volume II of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain. Juan was very accommodating. He opened the bar for me and allowed me to take photos of Don Ernesto. Mission accomplished.

My next stop was calle San Nicolas, which in the 1970s we used to call Death Alley, not without reason. It is a street of the Plaza del Castillo that is filled from one end to the other with bars, restaurants and legendary hostals. One night during los sanfermines 1970, I went with the great Matt Carney and a couple of other malcreants to calle San Nicolas. Our aim was to have a drink in every bar on the street. I think I quit after eight bars. Matt and the others continued. Matt told me later that they did not make it all the way, otherwise it would have been Death Alley for sure. At a recent count

I stopped for breakfast at a place that was new to me, La Mandarra de la Ramos, which is now the flagship of what was several pintxo bars in the barrios de Pamplona. On the floor of the bar is a lifesize representation of the encierro, complete with bulls running along the floor. I had a tapa that is new to me, a bola de carne picada con guindillas, a fried ball of chopped meat laced with picante piparra peppers. I would return to this place a couple of times during fiesta.

23/08/2024

Pamplona, sanfermines, Bomber 1999, Chris Humphreys 1973, Dick Zeidman 1995, Erica Dawes 1985, Joe Distler 1985.

22/08/2024

Inspired by the greatest classic writers on Spain-- Alexandre Dumas père, Richard Ford, Flaubert, Somerset Maugham, Hemingway, Michener and D E Pohren among others--Dawes has written an entirely original work (you could say sui generis) on Spanish culture, focusing on the people and the places and the deep culture surrounding Spanish food and wine, a unique culture that stretches back thousands of years. If you have any interest in that ancient and fascinating Spanish way of life, or in how and why culinary magicians such as Ferran Adrià or José Andrés have been made into cultural heroes, you will definitely want to read "Sunset in a Glass," which is a classic in its own time. And like Cervantes, Dawes promises a second part...."--Author Allen Josephs

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition

22/08/2024

It has been suggested and I agree, Democrats need to stop harping on the Kamala is a woman-daughter of immigrants-black, etc. She is an exceptionally well qualified candidate for President and the programs she will pursue will uplift the American people and pave the way for a much brighter present and future for all of us, except for Donald Trump and his demented followers--and even some of them will benefit.

One of the key items on her proposals lift is to promise MAGA-ott RepugNaziKKKants visitation rights to Donald during his prison terms.

22/08/2024

The late great New Zealand-born sculptor, sanferminero and aficionado a los toros, Lindsay Daen, who was a part of a moment in the pass of Roncesvalles worthy of legend, greeting my then wife Diana Valenti Dawes, Plaza del Castillo, Pamplona, San Fermín, July 6, 1985.

I am going to be posting a series of photographs taken in Spain on many of my wine and food trips there with some of the American, Spanish and international chefs and food personalities, winemakers and well-known people I have been with on trips, outings and excursions I have led and conferences I have attended.

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

All photographs are copyright by Gerry Dawes©2020 and, other then passing them along with credit on Facebook, publication is not authorized without my written permission.

22/08/2024

Dr. Fran McGuinness at Noel Chandler's Champagne Fiesta, July 6, 1999.

I am going to be posting a series of photographs taken in Spain on many of my wine and food trips there with some of the American, Spanish and international chefs and food personalities, winemakers and well-known people I have been with on trips, outings and excursions I have led and conferences I have attended.

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

All photographs are copyright by Gerry Dawes©2024 and, other then passing them along with credit on Facebook, publication is not authorized without my written permission.

21/08/2024

We arrived in Pamplona at 3 a.m. on July 6, found my lodging in the home of my wonderful new friend Carmen Rodriguez, who came from a couple of blocks away where she was working the night shift at her job—she is a Policia Foral policewoman.

I tried to pay my taxista the 800 Euros, 770 on the meter and 30 Euros tip (I paid for dinner), first with my American Express cards, which he does not take, then with my Prime Visa card, which did not go through, then with my Chase Visa Debit Care. Both were rejected, at which point, Carmen, unrequested, stepped up and paid Jesús Álvarez with one of her credit cards. Wow, I had to spend 800 Euros to be there, but had been in Pamplona for five minutes and I was already off to a promising start.

My 2024 sanfermines would turn out to be one of the greatest.

At 3:00 a.m. Carmen showed me to my large interior room—I had a choice of a fiesta-side room or a quiet room. Being a veteran of many sanfermines, I decided to live my fiesta in the street, not during the overnight hours in my bedroom. I went to bed after thoroughly stressful day, having left Sevilla by train in the afternoon, then having spent those excruciating hours in my peregrinations all over Madrid trying to retrieve my San Fermín gear and find transportation, then the five-hour trip to Pamplona.

Carmen knocked on my bedroom door at 10:00 saying, "Come on, we have to be at breakfast in the street a couple of blocks."

So began my San Fermin, which was already promising to be one of most eventful of my 19 sanfermines. A big trestle table was lined with 50-60 people, already drinking vino and eating round loaf sandwiches filled with ajoarriero (a classic northern Spanish bacalao dish.

Then there was rice with peas and grilled quail, which I did not get because Carmen whisked me off to El Burladero Bar-Restaurant to meet my Facebook and e-mail correspondent Miguel Izu, with whom I have been exchanging info debunking Ernest Hemingway myths, especially those involving claims by Spanish hotels and restaurants about where Hemingway ate and stayed.

Photos:

Street breakfast, bocadillo de ajoarriero

Pamplona street breakfast.

With Carmen Rodríguez Purroy and Miguel Izu at Restaurante El Burladero.

Carmen and friends at the street breakfast.

Later, during fiestas, Carmen and her Policial Foral de Navarra colleagues out her apartment in Pamplona.

20/08/2024

July 5-6 The Misadventure, Sevilla-Madrid-Aranda-Pamplona

My 19th trip to the Fiestas de San Fermín, pursuing the trails laid down by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises.

It was July 4, or so I thought and I was at best friend Manolo Esquivias’s home in Santa Clara on the northwestern outskirts of Sevilla. We have to get ready to go to Santa Justa station so I can catch the AVE high-speed train to Madrid.

“What time does it leave?”, Manolo asked.

I looked at my ticket, the train left at 15:00, the day before. Today was the 5th of July and I should have been in Madrid yesterday, where I had a hotel on the Gran Vía reserved and paid for! The hotel payment was down the drain, but I had stayed the night at Manolo’s, so that was a wash. The AVE ticket was also gone.

I got my gear together a caught a taxi to Madrid to catch the AVE that I had missed yesterday, which was scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 17:40, which would give me time to get a taxi to take me to Hostal Lauria, at Gran Vía 50, stop for five minutes and pick up the Pamplona gear that I had left there, then straight to the airport to meet the Peter and Karen Re*****on, whom I did not know, but who had at Junerose Conlin’s request had offered me a ride to Pamplona if I could get to the airport by 18:00.

The ride on the Irgo train was excellent, fast and had entertainment: I photographed a short, chunky, unattractive girl, laboriously and obsessively applying eye and face makeup for at least an hour during the trip.

Jesús Álvarez, the Good Samaritan taxi driver who picked me up at Atocha railway station in Madrid and stayed with me, at a substantial cost to me at least, for ten hours on a misadventure caused by the closing of the Gran Vía in Madrid for a Gay Pride parade. The police left no access to any of the hotels on the Gran Vía, which caused me to miss my free ride to Pamplona.

I needed to stop at Hostal Lauria for five minutes, retrieve my Pamplona gear, which I had left there because I thought I was coming back the night before. The plan was to get into Atocha on the AVE from Sevilla at 16:40, catch a taxi and make a quick stop at the Hotel to fetch my Pamplona gear and then head to Barajas at 18:00 to meet Peter and Karen Re*****on had so generously offered me a ride and then onto Pamplona.

A closed Gran Vía and being stuck for 45 minutes in the ensuing Tunel de Bailen snafu nixed that. We ran up 150 Euros as Jesús left me with his taxi while he walked--in the heat--several blocks to my Gran Vía hotel to retrieve my San Fermín white clothes, sash, tee-shirts and vintage scarves, which I had left at the Hostal since I planned to return.

By the time Jesús came back with my Pamplona gear E-bag, it was too late to get to the airport to meet my ride, so I called them and told them that I would have to find another way. Jesús took me to Atocha to try to catch the last AVE to Pamplona, but there was no time, then to the Avenida de Americas to see if I could get a bus. Jesús, now fully engaged in helping out of my predicament parked his taxi and accompanied into the station to inquire about buses. They were sold out! Then it was on to the Charmartin station, where he accompanied me to four different rental car agencies, none of which would rent me a car if I were not returning it to Madrid.

I had obligations that necessitated my being in Pamplona on July 6th and I was not about to come rolling in about the time of the cohete at the hour the fiesta begins and try to get to the apartment where I would be staying during San Fermin, which was a block from the bullring and two blocks from the epicenter of the fiesta.

I had to bite the bullet and ask Jesús what he would charge to take me to Pamplona in his taxi.

"Whatever the meter says."

“Let’s go,” I told Jesús, resigning myself to the shellacking my bank account was going to take. “We will stop in Aranda de Duero for dinner at Tudanca.”

I called my friend Jesús Tudanca, the owner of Area de Tudanca, a restaurant, bar, tour bus stop, hotel-and-spa and gas station just south of Aranda. He also owns Bodegas Tudanca, where his niece Laura Sardina is the winemaker who makes some of the most drinkable wines of the Ribera del Duero. Her Tudanca vino tinto joven is a marvel and one of my favorite wines of the Ribera, since it most closely approximates what this area’s wine used to be like before the denominación de origen decided that they would rather be in the new oak carpentry business than the wine trade and began scorching their wines with bashings of harsh new oak flavors.

Jesus answered my WhatsApp call and he told me that he was in Marbella, so I would not be seeing him on this pass. I decided we would stop any way. It was 22:45 when we arrived and the staff at first did not want to seat us, so I played my friend of Jesús Tudanca card and they relented. My soon-to-be-enriched taxi driver Jesús Álvarez and I had a fine dinner of morcilla de Burgos con pimientos rojos asados (Burgos-style rice-laced blood sausage with roasted red peppers), ensalada de lechuga, tomate y cebollas, plates of chuletillas lechales asado con patatas fritas (baby lamb chops with Spanish fried potatoes) and cuajada con miel (the legendary dish so beloved in The Basque Country and especially, Navarra, but in all of northern Spain, ¨curdled¨ ewe´s milk mixed with rennet and heated to get a smooth-to-grainy consistency reminiscent of a cross between custard (no eggs) and yogurt, served with honey).

We had gassed up before we got to Aranda de Duero, so Jesús Álvarez put the pedal down and we headed for Pamplona. I asked him to exit the autovía at Burgos and take route N-120 TO Logroño, because I knew we would save kilometers and tolls and at this time of night, there would be little or no traffic. I was right and we avoided the monotony of the autoroute.

We arrived in Pamplona at 3 a.m. on July 6, found my lodging in the home of my wonderful new friend Carmen Rodriguez, who came from a couple of blocks away where she was working the night shift at her job—she is a Policia Foral policewoman.

I tried to pay my taxista the 800 Euros, 770 on the meter and 30 Euros tip (I paid for dinner), first with my American Express cards, which he does not take, then with my Prime Visa card, which did not go through, then with my Chase Visa Debit Care. Both were rejected, at which point, Carmen, unrequested, stepped up and paid Jesús Álvarez with one of her credit cards. Wow, I had to spend 800 Euros to be there, but had been in Pamplona for five minutes and I was already off to a promising start.

As my taxista Jesús Álvarez told me on our trip, as I was bemoaning my bad luck with the snafu in Madrid, the closed major Avenida and all the travel option rejections along the way, “Gerry, forget about it, put it behind you, there is nothing you can do about it, so look forward to your new adventures in Pamplona. And, other than recounting this incredible story that is what I did. My 2024 sanfermines would turn out to be one of the greatest. (More to come.)

The makeup specialist.

On the high-speed train, Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain.

Stopping in a Madrid bar for refreshment and a bathroom pit stop with my taxi drive Jesús Álvarez.

My friend Jesús Tudanca, the owner of Area de Tudanca, a restaurant, bar, tour bus stop, hotel-and-spa and gas station just south of Aranda. He also owns Bodegas Tudanca, where his niece Laura Sardina is the winemaker who makes some of the most drinkable wines of the Ribera del Duero. (Jesús was away in Marbella, but Kay and I would see him on our return trip to Madrid after the Fiestas de Santa Ana in Tudela.)