On Saturday evening we happened to be on the main street of Arica, 21 de Mayo, when we saw a suspicious number of people wandering around in intricately sequinned outfits or with feathered hats. I was compelled to ask a lady about half my height, but with a feathered hat that made us equal, at what time they were parading.
I knew there would be a parade because there are parades almost every day in Arica, as you might have seen if you keep an eye on my photostream. Sometimes it’s hard to discern what they’re for, though of late they’re mostly related to the World Cup.
The tiny lady with the large feathered hat confirmed that they would be parading in “about ten minutes” this can mean anything from in fifteen minutes to in a couple of hours, in reality. So we strolled along the main street anticipating a parade at some point.
We were not disappointed. Rather than a half hour flash in the pan as happens most days, this festival involved people dancing for four hours down the main street, and then dancing for late into the madrugada (Spanish for 1-5am). I’ve never seen so many astounding costumes or so many colours.
On Monday I discovered it had been an Aymara winter solstice festival. However it wasn’t just Ayamaran dancing (the Ayamara are one of the indigenous communities in the Andes near here). We also saw Tinkus, Marinera and even some African dancing. But these words will mean little to those outside of the region – here are some photos that will give an idea of the different styles.
My favourite was the Tinkus. It reminded me a little of Maori hakas but much more colourful and a bit less scary. But if I’d been a conquistador coming across some of these guys it would have been pretty intimidating.
This experience was my biggest South American cultural education so far, and it was completely free as well as hugely entertaining. South Americans know how to party and celebrate their heritage better than anywhere I’ve been so far.
After the conference I crossed the bridge from Sweden to Denmark, leaving Malmö for Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a pretty iconic city, between The Little Mermaid and the royal family. Given that Princess Mary is Australia’s own, I was chuffed to get a glimpse of her in a purple coat at some military celebration, pictured. We asked a Danish guy standing near us what was going on, but I forget what he said. I googled to try and figure out what celebration it was, in August ’08, to no avail. If anyone can enlighten me, it would be much appreciated!
I had planned to visit Sarah in Madrid without knowing it was going to be Spain Day on Friday. This meant it was a bit of an effort to get accommodation. I ended up booking a bed in a boy’s dorm room in a (in)famous Madrid hostel, then hastily emailing the hostel to explain I was actually female so would prefer a mixed/girls dorm, but that option wasn’t available for booking on the site.
Then I worried for a couple of days I was going to spend all weekend in a dorm with stinky, farty, rowdy guys. After our crap hostel experience in San Sebastian I was anxious. It turned out to be fine, when I arrived at Cat’s in Madrid they found a bed in a mixed dorm for me, so I dumped my gear with relief and set out into the city with Sarah.
Madrid is a cool city. It reminds me of Melbourne. Madrid is not as showy as Barcelona (or so I hear) in the same way as Melbourne is Sydney’s less flashy but more cultured sister. It also has good public transport system.
For the capital of a European country Madrid is very small, you can walk around it in about half a day. But then you can easily spend another half a day at the Reina Sophia Museum and another half strolling around Parco del Retiro.
Or, if like me you go during festival, you can spend what feels like half a day (or night, rather) dancing along the streets of Madrid in one of the Fiesta Nacional parades, which featured half a dozen stages with acts covering hip hop, Latino Americano and traditional flamenco music. Sarah and I decided we liked the Latino Americano groove, so slotted ourselves in amongst the crowd between that float as it performed its way through Madrid’s streets.
After a couple of hours I was getting sore feet and was getting fed up of the group of Peruvians who were yelling whatever the equivalent of ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi’ is in Peru, every two minutes just behind us. I felt like a piker wanting to leave already, because in Spain children do everything their parents do, so although it was around midnight there were dozens of children trekking through the streets. I worried they might get trampled if the crowd got out of control. Their parents didn’t.
I chilled out, there was no point feeling fed up and anxious because there was no way we were getting out of the parade, since it was dozens of people deep and moving. I just went with the flow.
Filed under: europe, events, festivals, spain, travel | Tags: parade, rota
After an afternoon swim and a siesta we headed out to see the parade. By a stroke of fortune our hotel was by the corner where the parade started, so we joined the lines of families and old couples in anticipation. Rather than blocking the streets altogether, the police revelled in their authority, whistling angrily at disobedient traffic, then thrusting an open palm to families spilling onto the street, who fell over each other in their efforts to stop suddenly, so buses could rumble to life and continue their journeys. People on the buses to other destinations were glued to their windows, absorbing the gathering floats and bands with their eyes, like toddlers at a candy store.The parade started with a trickle of police and a man with a fistful of shiny balloons. Unlike Australian parades, where security staff strictly guard yellow lines, children here cascaded onto the road in their eagerness for inflated cartoons and sugar.
Then came the giant jungle complete with sounds, which sent the children skittling back into the safety of their parents’ arms. Each jungle creature hid a man in a cage with leavers, like the Wizard of Oz. The man at the heart of the giant rhinoceros decided to mix things up by making his shell do a 360, and the rhino’s bum came careering towards Graham, who was distracted by the looming giraffe and snake. I grabbed him moments before collision, as children squealed in delight and terror. The young lad in the giraffe decided to follow suit and the giraffe arced around the road, skimming traffic lights. The police watched on, unperturbed.
The jungle was only an appetiser though, because this was the night of the Damas. It seemed every young lady of a certain age has been dolled up in white and put on a pedestal, or at least a float of some description. There was the queen of the parade who evidently got the title on looks alone. She was given packets and packets of streamers to throw out. But it seemed she didn’t realise you’re supposed to hold the inside of the tube and throw so the streamer curls out pleasingly. Instead, she was pegging them, furled, at the audience. This could be forgiven if she were on an early float, as the audience could then unfurl the streamers over the oncoming parade. But she was the end of the show, so more likely just lacking intelligence. Or perhaps she had some vendetta against her home town that she had found the perfect opportunity to settle.
Before the queen of the parade were a broad selection of young ladies in white perched on floats of all descriptions, some with cherubic youngsters throwing confetti ahead, others intermingled with cartoon characters. If I were a debutante in Rota I would have been unhappy to be stuck on the Shrek or Simpsons floats, as a dozen girls were.
After some quick tapas we funnelled into the crowd following the parade to the centre of the old town. There we had some more tapas before realising the crowds had moved on and we may be missing the action. Heading towards the sea we discovered a massive outdoor concert starring some Spanish pop stallion. The plaza was packed, so we stayed on the outskirts, were a bar was selling drinks in takeaway glasses. There we stayed, overlooking the vast crowd. At the very front were the Damas, stripped of their glamorous aloofness, teenagers again, screaming and swaying their white-gloved arms at the pop star. It was like the town’s most eligible women were scrubbed up and served to him on a platter. He crooned to them, in response they waved their gloved arms excitedly, like whitewater in a river. The pure illusion of the Damas was broken.
In case you haven’t guessed, I like France a lot. My French is at a level that with a bit of immersion I improve consistently, so I enjoy using it. Hence I was sad when we crossed the border into Spain. I was back to square one again, with a smattering of knowledge that falls short whenever trying to have a conversation with anyone. I will be here for a month, so hopefully I’ll look back on this and think “gosh I’ve come a long way”.
At least I was crossing into somewhere nice and, spiteful as it sounds, where other people have language problems too. Crossing from Biarritz to San Sebastian took us in the heart of Basque country. The Basque have their own language that’s about as similar to Spanish as Welsh is to English. It seems to have a lot of x’s. To give you an idea of how different they are, the town we arrived in, called San Sebastian in Spanish (and therefore English and French), is actually called Donostia by the locals. We were lucky enough to be passing through during the Donostia Zinemaldia (that is, the San Sebastian Film Festival).
We knew this was around the time we would be there, so on arrival Ian asked our taxi driver in broken Spanish whether the film festival was still on. He responded in an incomprehensible Basque accent, but also thrust the newspaper towards us and pointed at the picture of Demi Moore posing on the local red carpet. In case we didn’t get it, we then passed a colossal sign advertising the festival.
Though I do think planning your travel is overrated, in some circumstances, such as during festivals, I recommend it. We had booked our hostel (which was too crappy to merit naming here). It would have been clever to book tickets to something during the festival, but we hadn’t. So there were tickets left only to one English-language production. It was about 5 euros each so we thought ‘what the hell’, festivals are about not being able to base your decision on reviews anyway because you’re the first to see it. So we went and saw ‘Berlin’, which is a doco about Lou Reed’s final concert. It sounded like it could be cool, but we walked out after 20 minutes. Lou Reed may be a great musician, but calling it a doco was exaggerating. Someone had basically just filmed the concert and called it a doco. After four songs we were bored and left.
Emerging from the theatre I saw there were clearly a lot of other people doing things besides attending the festival, because the narrow, high-walled streets were packed. It was about 10pm and of course in Spain on a Saturday night, this is early. Kids were running amok, playing street hockey and elastics (a blast from the past for me). We wandered amongst the bars, having cervazas and tinto de veranos and of course tapas. They have some freaky tapas there. There were some awesome bruschetta (excuse my Italian) with jamón (cured ham) and pimientos (peppers) and excellent squid. I was intrigued by a bruschetta that appeared to be covered in fried worms. We asked the barman what they were and he said they were from the sea. I wasn’t game. Eating jamón while looking at the festy pig leg it came from hanging from the ceiling is adventurous enough for me. Maybe another time, once I’m more adapted to Spanish cuisine.
On Friday night I went to the May Ball of my unofficial college, Darwin. There was no crazy dress on this occasion – the May Ball is all about getting frocked up, or bow tied up if you’re a guy, and making the most of your pricey all-you-can-drink-and-eat ticket.
It costs about the same as the Big Day Out in Australia, but it’s just one evening. And that’s just for relatively impoverished Darwin – I know the more lavish Clare, King’s or St John’s tickets were double that.
The cost and effort getting dolled up was worth it – it will be one of my excellent memories of Cambridge.
The theme of the Darwin ball this year was Il Milione, the travels of Marco Polo. Hence we had Venetian gondola rides (ie. punting), a Chinese dragon and drums, a kind of harem room with big pillows, Turkish delight, baklava, nougat and muffins (bit of a cultural mishmash really), a Monaco-style casino room, and all sorts of other entertainments.
It was well done. There was a constant supply of alcohol and food, as well as water bottles, so people were merry, not disgusting.
Somehow I’ve been here long enough that even when I lost my core group of mates amongst the fairylike Darwin gardens I came across someone else I knew, which is always a good thing after a couple of drinks.
No doubt due to the constant supply of entertainment, edibles and amigos I managed to make it through to the survivor’s photo, taken at a rather tame 3am.
The photographers, rather foolishly I thought, arranged for the photo viewing to happen on Sunday. Hopefully someone was perky enough to get a copy of our survivors shot – I’d like to see it.
