As I promised in a previous post, I would be sacrifising myself for the greater good (that is you dear readers) and I would start attending some of the local traditional and cultural summer parties.
This is the first of a long list I hope. :-) Actually going to this party was Miguel's idea or Bea's (Miguel's sister), there's still a debate going on about how's idea was it in the first place but what I do know is that it wasn't my idea because I had never heard of this party ever before, but I'm glad I went because I had a great time! :-)
Let's start with the introductions, below are Miguel and Bea the culprits of making me go to this crazy party! :-)
You'll have to forgive the photographic quality on this post since night pictures are not exactly what my camera was designed for but I tried my best and some are not too bad.
So, what is all about?
At the village you get yourself a torch...mind you, not a 20th century torch, a 15th century torch, you know, made from wax and cloth. You light it up and join the rest of people.
What you do is to walk up the local mountain with your torch lightened up and once you reach the top, they start a big fire and prepare some "queimadas".
For those of you unfamiliar with what the "queimadas" are.
They are made from a local alcoholic drink of high alcohol content (made from destilling what was left from the grapes when making wine), some sugar, lemon and other ingredients which vary depending on who is making it, they are all added to the mix and finally you put the whole thing on fire at the same time you cast away all the evil spirits. The last part is the most important. ;-)
I was quite eager and really looking forward to this weird party so when we got to the village where it all started from, we got ourselves a torch each and started to walk, following the crowd. As you probably imagined by now, you don't need to make your own torch back home, you can buy it ready made at the village for a couple of euros which help to pay for the event.
Bea trying an exorcism on me.
There were quite a lot of people attending the party
The whole climb is probably 2-3 Km, and the views at night are quite impressive, a pity none of the pictures I took are good enough to see it.
As night photography was letting me down I decided to change strategy and made a movie where you'll probably be able to feel the atmosphere better than with a few dark pictures.
Again, I tried to capture some action and avoid the photos that were letting me down. This should give you a feel for what the atmosphere was like on the top of the mountain.
Then along came the spell casters! :-)
The next part was the preparation of the "Queimada" and all the spell casting that goes with it...hilarious, a pity it's impossible to appreciate from a few photos. I've got a couple of videos but they are 200+ Mb, it is too dark to see anything and it's in Galician so I figured I'll have to live with just a few pictures.
All in all it was a great night, we had a few laughs and we managed to make it to the top without burning ourselves nor our clothing...which is something not everyone attending the party can say. :-) The "queimada" was pretty good and we even got a "queimada" cup as a souvenir. :-)
I would really recommend it and if I have the chance to attend again, I'll be coming back!
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