Las Fallas (Part 1)

It's mind-blowing to me to come across big festivals that I've never even HEARD of when travelling. Las Fallas festival in Valencia, Spain is one of them. It wasn't until we'd decided to come here that I first read about it in Lonely Planet, where they said something to the effect that if you´re in Spain from March 13-19 this should NOT be missed. Realizing that we WOULD be in the general area, I figured "Why not?!" and that's how we found ourselves here in the midst of one of the craziest parties we've ever witnessed. Since it started in 1850´s, this week-long festival has grown from the different barrios/neighborhoods of town creating modest-sized papier mache sculptures in competition to one another to NOW where the most outlandish costs 600,000 Euro and is about 8 storeys high (28 Meters)! Every day at 2pm they hold a LOUD fireworks show that's much more about percussion than light, and at 1am there's a more traditional nightime display, except that it´s so over-the-top it feels more like the apocalypse. There are many costumed parades that happen throughout the week and lots of celebrations within the different barrios that have sponsored each Falla. On Sunday (tonight), it all culminates in a fire parade, another massive fireworks display and the torching of all the Fallas.

We´ve been disappointed that we´ll be missing BurningMan this year, but WOW, this is certainly helping to take some of the sting out of that! There are people out in force 24-hours, and if you think you´ll sleep much here, you´ll be wrong. There´s a constant cacophany of firework explosions (even 3 year olds set them off, and they´re not small either!) with the occasional marching band and the underlying roar of human sound + energy. We were VERY lucky to score an apartment for the week in the heart of it with a great vantage on one of the El Carmen barrio groups. There are always people milling about. They host a daily paella feast for lunch and various dinners. The day they paraded to the Virgin for their flower offering, everyone was dressed in their finest traditional regalia. The band members followed behind and they played throughout the entire procession and even one last song once they returned a couple hours later! These people have pride!

You can check out videos at www.fallas.com, go into Multimedia, then Mascletades 2006, view Dia 18 or 19 for the biggest.

Here's a "link" to more photos