Kirsty Mckenzie
JUST as the sun also rises, so too do the COVID infection rates.
As a result, officials in Pamplona are locking horns over preparations from the San Fermin bull-running celebration.
The northern Spanish city, adored by Hemingway, has killed plans for the annual festival for the second year running according to the regional head.
Maria Chivite, president of Navarra’s regional administration said an ‘international festival like San Fermin, in which millions of people come to Navarra, won’t be possible’.
“It is not responsible to create expectations which will be impossible to fulfill,” she added.
But Pamplona’s mayor saw red over the remarks and was quick to say that an official decision had yet been made.
He sad: “All citizens are aware that, with the available data, it will obviously be difficult to talk about (the festival) as we have known it until now, but today on Feb.2 … there’s no decision made.”
The San Fermin festival, named after the city’s patron saint, is one of Spain’s best-known annual events.
Each summer thousands of tourists descend on on the city to take part in the celebrations, with some visitors risk life and limb by running along a narrow street in front of bulls to the arena, where the animals are ritually slaughtered by matadors.
Two years running without the Pamplona signals progress.