Dead Sea and beyond!

So I made it to the Dead Sea, ended up doing to some couchsurfing while I was there! It was a great couple Noam and Karen! Had one of the coolest houses I have ever seen, they lived in a place called a Kibutz, small community that is fairly isolated! Out in the middle of the desert. They showed me around the area, took me to the mountain side where the Dead Sea scrolls were found, and fed me great Israeli food! I hitchhiked one day to this very old mountaintop palace and fort. It was soo old it was amazing, the buildings had mostly fallen down but there still were remenants of the place! It had a great view of the Dead Sea and Jordan. After that I went and pampered myself a bit, Ive had a backpack on my back for almost 5 months, it hurts, so time to treat me! It was wonderful and refreshing. After that I hitched back to the Kibutz. One of the days we went to the Dead Sea and went floating in it, it would normally be swimming in it but this particular body of water is sooo salty that you literally float on top of the water! Very trippy feeling! The time spent there in the Dead Sea was some of the highlights of my trip so far! So it was time to head back to Tel Aviv and get ready for leaving for Spain again. I said my goodbyes to the family, it was soo nice to see them and they treated me well, like family! Next stop was Pamplona, and the Running of the Bulls!

I made it there just as the starting rocket went off for the festival, San Fermin is what the Spanish call it. I walked into the square where I was supposed meet my friend Keith from Antarctica. I looked around and there were probably 10, 000 people!! The population of Pamplona is roughly 160,000, for the festival there is an influx of roughly 2.5 million people, yeah, holy @(*$&Y$ is right batman! Soooooo many people I could not believe and most of them are dressed in the proper festival attire, white shirt and pants with a red sash and red hankerchief round the neck. I did a little bit of a revelry for the first night but I wanted to be fresh for the running of the bulls the next day! So, the morning arrived and it was time to run with the bulls! The day was 7-7-7 a very lucky day, hopefully to avoid a 3 thousand pound bull runnin at my ass! Well, the run was packed with people and it was filled with an air of excitement like no other I have witnessed before in my life! As the run was roughly 30 minutes from starting they clear the course, so my friend and I being in the middle of the course were kicked off! This was unacceptable for me and Jenna, so we double backed to the beginning of the course and made our way through the throngs of people and we were able to make it back to exactly where we had started! So the run was about to begin! The rocket shot off and people began to run we were on a blind corner so all we saw were people running and then of course all of a sudden the pack of bulls came a chargin through! WOW, talk about adrenaline and wow talk about train of momentum! The pack ran by without taking me or Jenna out, whew!! So after that you run behind the bulls and make it to the Plaza del Toro's, basically the stadium where they end up and the final part of the event takes place! They pack as many people as they can in the ring and then close the gates behind everyone, then after a couple of minutes they let out a juvenile bull with its horns capped, they do this 5 times!! So at first I was absolutely scared to death to get tossed by the bull but then I eased up and wanted to get in the action. So I got closer to where the bull was tossing people around and pummeling them with its body, at that point I have never had an adreneline rush that was that big!! It was crazy! People basically try and smack the bull in the ass and try and get away from it after that, sometimes it works out sometimes they get tossed like a rag doll or worse and get crushed to the ground! So for me I had to try this! So the first 3 bulls I smacked the ass without any tossing! Then ol' number 31 came out, he was a fiesty one! He was tossing people round left and right, pretty much putting people in the hurt locker! I was tentative on this guy but I had to get in on it, so I began approaching, and then all of a sudden he stopped and he did what I thought was only in the cartoons, he started to drag his front hoofs like, you know that one, like he was pawing at the dirt, the only thing missing was the smoke coming from his nose!!! He looked right at me, well there were other around but I swear he was looking right at me and charged, went to the left and then to the right, at that moment he was right next to me and basically, I stiff armed his horns, my little Heisman pose if you will, and then he just kept goin on and tossing others, so I got as close as 6 inches from getting tossed by a bull, but my swift moves saved my ass! Anyway it was an amazing experience one that will never be duplicated! I had a wonderful amazing time with my new friend, Jenna, a friend that knows my Antarctica buddy, Keith and Keith, Jenna and I all enjoyed the San Fermin festival to the highest level!! Very cool times with very cool people! Anyways, after the festival was done for us, it kept goin on for 8 more days, but we were done so Keith went and met up with his sweetie, Bluey in Balboa and then Jenna and me went to this city called Zaragosa where we enjoyed two wonderful days together relaxing and decompressing our time in Pamplona!!! A great way to end a wonderful journey! So after saying goodbye to my new friend Jenna I boarded a train to Madrid and 5 hours later I was flying over the Atlantic Ocean!! Now I am back home in America. Boulder, Colorado to be exact getting ready for some good ol' family fun, time to be Uncle Seth and then a bit more traveling in the US to see Grandma's then back to Denver for orientation for another season on the ice and then well, I guess a whole nother round of fun in the sun with the birds, bee's and soo many trees!!! Well the next blog with probably be when I get to Antarctica in 1 month from now! It was a trip of all trip but I plan to add more!!! Talk to ya'll later, and as I say, till the next time!!! The pics are in random order, they are the Dead Sea and then the Running of the Bulls!