A small rock in the Atlantic

The Funeral at Last!

Last night I went to the delayed Sardine's Funeral in Los Sauces. I finally discovered why people say it's better than the sardine's funeral in Santa Cruz.

They say it because it's true.

The crowd was far bigger than in Santa Cruz, and over half of them wore fancy dress - mostly Halloween theme costumes. This is my hairdresser. I didn't recognise him until he spoke.

First they had a butaca - serious percussion. I took a lot of video, but there wasn't much light and most people were wearing black, so it's not brilliant. I need to learn to edit video.

At the end of the butaca it poured with rain for about ten minutes. Imagine a couple of thousand people all looking for shelter and saying, "Oh no!" all at once. Thankfully it stopped pretty quickly.

Then I wondered about for a bit and had a beer (alcohol free - I was driving).

Then the sardine appeared.

Now in Santa Cruz its a funeral procession, and the mourners are wailing with fake grief, but they're walking in a dignified way.

In Los Sauces, the sardine is being tossed around as though it's on a rough sea. The pall bearers really work up a sweat. I found out the hard way that it gets a fair bit of momentum - the guys at one side can't necesarily stop just because they're going to crash into a photographer. I was glad I only took the compact camera. And the mourners jog and pogo and screech like banshees. It's like Santa Cruz used to be, only better. Monty Python eat your heart out. What's more, there were a couple of smaller sardines brought by groups of kids. The sardine goes around the square twice, and then through the back streets towards the huge new bridge, back along the main street, round the square twice again, and finally onto the bier in the square. The kids' sardines went under the bier.

Of course it ends with the sardine being cremated. And in Los Sauces, the crowd doesn't just watch and cheer. They pogo and boogie and scream again. And there are lots more fireworks.

By then it was one in the morning, so I didn't stop for the public dance. I just ate a sandwich and went home.

Next year I'm going back, and I'm definitely dressing up.

I'll post some video when I've editied it.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma, Los Sauces, Sardine's Funeral

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Los Sauces Sardine Postponed

Los Sauces always hold their Sardine's Funeral a week or two after Santa Cruz. It was supposed to happen on Saturday, but we had an orange weather alert. The rain poured and the wind gusted, and it was obvious that nobody was going out if they could help it. In one way it's a good thing - the reservoirs were very low after such a dry winter.

It's finally stopped raining, so today I phoned a couple of bars in Los Sauces, and politely asked for news. Nope, it's not tonight. It should be on Friday 24th. That sounds good to me.

Meanwhile, you can see some video of last year's funeral here.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma

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The Sardine's Funeral

Tonight was supposed to be the sardine's funeral in Santa Cruz de la Palma.

This is actually a bizarre finale to Carnival, and as such was traditionally held on Ash Wednesday. (They still do so in Tenerife. See http://www.secret-tenerife.com/2008/02/ash-wednesday-burial-of-sardine.html
But some years ago, Santa Cruz de La Palma started to hold their Sardine's Funeral on
the Friday of Carnival week. Presumably they felt it would be more popular if most people didn't have to work in the morning.

But it's been raining most of the day, so it was postponed. Even if they cancel it, the villageof Los Sauces hold their Sardine's funeral next week. Watch this space.

And in the meantime, you can see pictures of a previous funeral here.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma, Sardine's Funeral

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Mojitos

Mojitos are a popular drink during Carnival: sugar, lemon juice, rum and mint. This bar is famous for them all year round, so during Carnival they prepare them in batches. This was one of the smaller batches!

One of the things I like about La Palma, is that people often have a few drinks, but it's rare to see anyone downright drunk. There's an article about this at http://sheilacrosby.com/articles/drunks.php

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma

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Los Indianos

The biggest night of Carnival on the island is Los Indianos parade.

In the 19th century the island was very poor, and many people emigrated to Cuba - the Indies. Some of them came back rich, so that the arrival of a boat from Cuba was quite an event, even though there were more boats to Latin America than to mainland Spain.

So we have a pretend boatload of nouveau-riche arrivals, parading along the main street. The women all dressed in beautiful white plantation dressed and the men in white linen slacks, frilly white shirts, and panama hats. Many carry suitcases with monoploy money poking out.

Los Indianos Parade 2007

And people throw vast quantities of talc at each other. By vast, I mean tons. Literally tons. The town hall gave away something like five tons of the stuff to people in the parade, and everyone else brings at least half a kilo of their own. The population of Santa Cruz is about fifteen thousand, and most of them are on the streets. And people come from all over the rest of the island too. In fact, people come from the other Canary Islands, and a few come all the way from South America. Every parking space in town is full, and parked cars line the main road to the airport for at least three kilometers. There are extra buses.

So the streets are heaving with people dressed in white, covered in white powder, blowing whistles and shaking maracas. (The top photo is from before things really got cracking.) All this starts at about five o'clock in the afternoon, and goes on until well after midnight. The morning after is a local holday, but the few times I've had to work, I've seen a few people still celebrating at eight o'clock next morning. Palmerans don't overdo things by halves.

And this year I missed it, due to a heavy cold. But you can see photos from last year at my main website.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma, Los Indianos

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Sopas de miel

This is a traditional recipe for Carnival. A literal translation would be "honey soup" but as you can see, this isn't soup. It can be rather soggy, though.

I believe in some places they use honey, but on La Palma, it's always "miel de cana", which is like molasses, but a little runnier.

Ingredients
Molasses (one small jar)
1 tsp cinnamon
anis 1 desertspoon
peel of one lemon
300g of toasted almonds (chopped)
Stale bread roll (standard Canarian size) cut into slices.

Some people like to use day-old bread, for soft "sopas" Others use week-old bread, so that it's crunchier.

Put the molasses, lemon peel, anis and cinnamon in a pan and simmer. When the flavours have had chance to mix, add about half the almonds. Keep the mixture simmering, while you add the bread slices, one at a time. Make sure they're well soaked with the mixture, and then fish them out onto a serving dish. When you've done all the bread (or run out of molasses mixture) sprinkle the rest of the almonds over, to decorate.

Personally I find them far too sweet, but there you go.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma, Recipies

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The Ambassador's Parade

Last night we had a diplomatic procession through Santa Cruz, where the representatives of any nation you care to mention graced us with their presence. And I missed it. (We had a family birthday party at midday, and I still couldn't drive that evening.) So here are some photos from 2006.

Ambassador's Parade 2006

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma

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Carnival

Spain celebrates Carnival in the week before the season of Lent. I always say people are making sure they have something really juicey to repent, but these days most people just regard it as a darn good excuse for a party.

It wasn't always that way. Franco banned Carnival. It's always been a time when people could say and do things they wouldn't normally get away with, and perhaps he didn't want people walking aruond with placards asking inconvenient questions. Perhaps, more seriously, he thought that a couple of thousand people in the with several drinks inside them might just start the counter-revolution. You know, like the old song, "As soon as this pub clo--o--ses, the revolution starts." Or perhaps he just felt that people should be working hard instead of having fun.

So there was no Carnival in the street organised by the town hall. Instead every club on the island held a "Winter Fiesta" that week, complete with fancy dress.

Carnival's just getting into serious gear, although the funfair's been here for a week. Last night was the children's parade. The photo shows the kids from the local infant school practising with their Carnival bus. The bus's weight is taken on its wheels, but it's pushed along by the kids, like Fred Flintstone's car.

The school were delighted when I went around with photos.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma