Many times when traveling, we end up with other tourists all seeing the same attractions. We will be in a different country but it still feels like we aren’t seeing the real culture. We enjoy seeing museums, castles, local food, waterfalls and whatever else the country has to show us, but sometimes it can be difficult to really see the real people. That all changes when you find a local cultural celebration. When the locals come out for a fair or festival, we can easily be emersed into the crowd and feel like we are really experiencing the culture. We seek out those scheduled celebrations like Dia De Muertos or Semana Santa but they also seem to sneak up on us as well. We have been surprised by many local parties and they usually become the highlights of our travels. We have gotten pretty lucky to experience some of these local cultural events.
We were recently in Spain and were able to witness the carrying of religious floats. Catholics all over the world will take the very heavy statues of Jesus or Mary and move it out of the church, carry it around the block, square, or several blocks, and then return it to the church. This often happens during Semana Santa (holy week before Easter) but we have seen it at many other times during the year. In Cordoba and Malaga Spain this year, the procession was very festive with huge brass bands accompanying the religious parade. Sometimes they are a little bit more solemn, but they seem to attract a crowd wherever they are. We have seen them in Spain, Peru, Italy, Mexico, Guatemala and even in Boston. When we hear or see a parade coming, we always will line up to see it go by. I don’t really understand a lot of the significance, but it is fun to be a part of it.
This year, we woke up on our first day in San Sebastian, Spain and started wandering around the old town and it seemed busier than we had remembered it. As we got closer to the marina, there started to be more people, more music and a lot more excitement. We had happened to arrive in San Sebastian on the final day of the rowing races (Bandera De La Concha). The best rowboats from the neighboring towns were here for the biggest race of the year. Hundreds of people wearing their towns colors were lining up around the bay to root for their boat. We joined in with the crowd and were again immersed in the culture instead of being a tourist just seeing the pictures in the museum like we did a couple years before. Besides the race, the celebrations continued the rest of the weekend. Another surprise that we won’t ever forget.
Also our our recent trip to Europe we had a short 2 night stay in the Spanish town of Huelva in Andalucia. As our bus came into town we realized something big was going on. There were people in dressed up everywhere. It was fancy dress up with the men in suits and broad brim hats with the women in Flamenco style dresses with huge flowers in their hair. We had arrived in town for the annual Horse Fair (Feria De Caballo). We made our way to the fairgrounds the next day and saw a world that we didn’t know existed. We watched the horse carriage shows with everyone looking like they just appeared out of the 1800’s. Another fantastic experience that we hadn’t anticipated.
In 2024 we were on our bucket list trip to the Galapagos Islands. We had a fantastic week on Santa Cruz Island and then we were to take a small ferry to the much less populated island of Isabela. Our small boat was filled with a bunch of people wearing similar T-shirts. They turned out to be “La Formula Original”, the big band that was going to perform at the celebration the next night. The only town on Isabella Island was turning 51 years old and it seems like every one of the 3000 people on the island was excited for the big party with this South American Cumbian music act. The dirt streets were closed down so whole town could be together for their big birthday party. Not something that we had on our itinerary,but it turned out to be one of the highlights!
On our first trip to Europe after our retirement in 2023, we started in the small French town of Arles. We were expecting to use this town as a base to see all of the other interesting towns in the region of Provence. But, the town of Arles was in the middle of the Arles Rice Fair. Lots going on!!! Flamenco Music, Drums, Bullfighting, Paella eating and Sangria drinking. We even saw the running on the bulls, Arles style. They let loose bulls out of a truck on one end of the street and then a bunch of kids chased them to a truck on the other end of the street. We were left not really understanding what all was going on. This was in France but felt so Spanish. We learned that we know way less than we thought about Europe and there are always going to be new things to see if we keep traveling.
In addition to these big parties, we have also found ourselves in a military parade in Madrid, the Cinco de Mayo parade in Puebla, Mexico, and many other much smaller celebrations. We ended up in an Argentinean party for lunch last month in Cordoba, Spain. We know try to plan for these events but it can be difficult. Many celebrations can be difficult to find on English speaking websites. Sometimes celebrations are really just a block full of arts and crafts tents that only take us a few minutes to walk through. But planning can also be overrated. We really do just enjoy being surprised when arriving at a town and realizing that our visit is going to be way better than what we expected. I hope it keeps happening.