Girls go wild as they let strangers grope their breasts at running of the bulls festival in Pamplona
Revellers also sprayed themselves with red wine as nine-day fiesta got underway
THOUSANDS of revellers drenched each other in red wine for the start of Spain's world famous San Fermin bull-running festival today.
The opening of the nine-day fiesta also had its perks for wandering hands - as women lifted their tops and allowed men to fondle their breasts.
Drunk Spaniards in traditional white outfits trimmed with red neckerchiefs and cummerbunds, danced and sprayed each other with cheap booze as red and white confetti rained down on them.
The crowds in the main square of Pamplona passed large yellow and black inflatable balls over their heads as scores looked down from packed apartment balconies.
The festival in honour of the patron saint of Spain's northern Navarra region - San Fermin - dates back to medieval times, and involves religious processions, all-night partying, and the hair-raising daily bull runs that have made it famous.
To stop revellers from relieving themselves in public during the festival, municipal workers this year coated the walls of busy areas of the city centre with a clear urine-repellent paint that causes pee to spray back on the person's shoes and pants.
For the first time this year the person who launched the "chupinazo" - a firecracker set off at the start off the festival - was chosen by a popular vote organised by city hall from a list of six candidates.
The winner was 85-year-old Jesus Ilundain Zaragueta, who took part in his first Pamplona bull run when he was just 15 and continued into his 60s.
Each day of the festival at 8:00 am hundreds of people race with six huge bulls, charging along a winding, roughly 850-metre course through narrow streets to the city's bull ring, where the animals are killed in an afternoon bullfight.
The bravest run as close to the tips of the horns as possible without being gored.
The first bull run, which traditionally draws the largest number of participants, is on Thursday.
A run takes just under four minutes on average and dozens of daredevils are hospitalised each year.
Most of the injuries are not caused by bull horns but by runners falling, or being knocked over and trampled by the animals.
Fifteen people have been killed in the bull runs since modern day records started in 1911.
About 50 semi-naked animal rights activists daubed themselves with fake blood and stood outside of Pamplona's bullring on Tuesday holding signs that read: "Pamplona: Bloodbath for bulls" in several languages.
The festival was immortalised in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and it attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.
Hotel occupancy in Pamplona on the eve of the start of the festival stood at 80 percent, two percentage points higher than during the same time last year, according to the Navarra Hotel Association.
Pamplona city hall will spend 1.95 million euros on cultural programming during the festival which wraps on July 14.
Last year 76 people were fined in Pamplona, a city of around 300,000 people, for urinating in public during San Fermin. The offence carries a fine of 300 euros ($335) -- or half that if it is paid right away.