day 11
day 11
The low point of my day was waiting over half an hour in a queue to buy my train ticket. I knew I should have bought my ticket to France online a few days ago, but being in a foreign country I thought I should speak to someone about it. This time I paid by credit card which creates the brilliant impression of not having spent 100 euros. I am returning Tuesday to get back into flat hunting in Barcelona, but am faced with the prospect of yet another holiday I can’t afford because I promised my friends I would go and see them while they are a mere four hour train journey away.
At 9:30 this evening I found myself outside on the street surrounded by thick smoke. I had my hands over my ears to protect them from the noise of constant explosions and was watching youths running around wearing hooded tops and scarves over their faces. The good news is I wasn’t caught up in a riot I was actually having my best night in ages watching the “correfoc”, part of the Mercé Festival celebrations. La Mercé is an annual festival lasting four days. Stages are erected all around the city and apart from live music there are lots of traditional events like the swimming race and a competition where different teams try to build the tallest human tower they can.
“Correfoc” is a Catalan word which literally translates as “fire run” (foc meaning fire), and that’s exactly what you do. Groups of people dressed as devils in fire proof clothing carry trident s loaded with fireworks and enormous bangers. They hold about 15 of these together, above their heads, to make a wigwam shape. The crowed gather round tightly (with hoods and scarves as protection), shouting rhythmically and jumping up and down while the head devil gets closer and closer to the wigwam with a large flame. When one trident catches light, the whole lot goes up, and the sparks start flying. There are Catherine wheels sending sparks in all directions and other fireworks which throw a constant shower of sparks in just one direction. The bangers start to light soon after the first sparks and the explosions sound over and over for a good couple of minutes. The crowd have two options - either run away very quickly as soon as it lights, or put their head down, their hands over their ears, scarves across their mouths and wait it out (whilst pretending to enjoy themselves!).
The first time we saw it was certainly the most exciting. Without knowing what to expect, we stood a little too close for comfort and then chose the running away option, along with a bit of girly screaming. It is amazing to see how well normal clothes stand up to a shower of sparks, I can’t believe people weren’t running around in flames, although the rain did help. Every local I spoke to about his festival told me that it always rains. “Why then, didn’t they change the date..” I was thinking, until i discovered that heavy rain is just what you need to stop the correfoc becoming extremely dangerous. I love foreign fiestas like this, where you are just looking at the carnage thinking how unsafe it is, and that it would never be allowed in Britain. We saw one person bleeding from the forehead and he seemed extremely proud about it, but overall, even taking into account fathers who dragged their small sons into the thick of it, there were no real injuries.
As well as the devilish wigwams there was the occasional dragon and samba band that passed by. The fire-breathing dragons were about 12 feet high and varied in ferocity. Some fired sparks directly at the crowd, another had a rather pathetic pink firework fizzing out of it’s head. One of the “dragons” looked suspiciously like a T-rex to me, but the whole spectacle was amazing.
The best of the samba bands drew in a massive crowd around a cafe terrace, and in some ways the pouring rain added to the experience. People were splashing around without umbrellas and dancing away in the rain. We weren’t drunk enough to find the rain inspiring, however, and mostly we just noticed our legs getting wet.
To top off our brilliant evening (pun intended), we tried a local speciality, “leche pantera”, along with a bottle of red and some blue cheese in a tapas bar in the gothic district. The bar was lively - full of wet people like us - and the “leche pantera”, which is basically alcoholic milk, tasted surprisingly good. Apparently it is only made on this street, and nowhere else in Spain serves it.
Tags: barcelona, catalonia, Travel
