The Romería

Cleverly dodging through a side street to avoid the gathering swarms of spectators, we continued walking into town on a street parallel to the procession but deserted.

Almost. Coming towards us was a pushcart decorated with flowers, fruit and biscuits and draped with brightly striped cloth to hide the sides of a supermarket trolley.

Lorenzo paused to greet us, reaching into his trolley. 'A little wine?'

He and the couple walking with him wore traditional Gomeran costumes and had guitars slung across their backs. We spent a pleasant few minutes sipping red wine from plastic mugs and toasting each others' health, Saint Sebastian, the whole splendid concept of fiestas and, in particular, today's Romería.

'But,' Lorenzo said suddenly, 'you're missing the procession! It's already started.' He thumbed towards a distant murmur of drums.

'So are you,' I pointed out.

Lorenzo nodded. 'Claro! Of course. I'm far too old to push a cart that far. We're going to wait at Silvio's then join in later.'

Silvio's is a bar. This is the healthy realism of the true Gomeran. A romería is conceptually a very serious occasion, but the trick is not to treat it so seriously that you spoil the fun. In essence it's a pilgrimage in procession to a holy shrine, and for maximum spiritual benefit it should involve a pitiless uphill trek along ancient pathways in torrential rain. The Gomeran version traverses wide, traffic-free streets in gentle winter sunshine.

But to be fair, completing the course can take anything up to three hours when you're strumming and dancing the whole way.

We arrived at the town square just before the procession, which was led by a group of young folk dancers energetically leaping and twirling to show how it's done. The steps are more complicated than they appear and tourists who try to join in risk looking like the dancing hippos in Disney's Fantasia.

Close on the bouncing heels of the dancers came their accompanying musicians, armed only with the tambor - a smallish drum - and Gomeran castanets, which are called chacaras and are a lot beefier than the prissy Sevillian variety. They were beating out a primitive rhythm accompanied by a weird, chanting song that is so viscerally Gomeran it sends shivers down my back. You can tell it goes back a long, long way, perhaps as far as the guanches, the Berbers of North Africa who were the first to set up home here.

Next up was a row of beautiful young ladies parading elegantly in traditional dress. The girl with the red banner was the Romera Mayor, symbolic leader of the celebrations, while her companions were Romeras de Honor who hadn't won the contest the other night but looked just as gorgeous anyway.

Their job was to continue looking beautiful and to smile for the spectators, the official photographer and their Aunty Margarita.

And then we were into the romería proper, an endless succession of musicians and dancers, still on their feet and twirling after their protracted journey into town.

Somewhere in the middle of all this we spotted Luzma, a neighbour, parading behind a small cart decorated like Lorenzo's with flowers and fruit. Perched on top of the cart was a chihuahua the size of a hamster wearing a flared skirt and cheeky straw hat.

Luzma beckoned us over. 'Have a dulce!' These are Luzma's festive speciality, sweet nibbles made from gofio*, almonds, honey and lemon, and I can't resist them. 'Have another!'

Further back along the street was a seething logjam where, if you peered above the bobbing heads, you might glimpse the dignified figure of San Sebastián perched silently on his pedestal. This was the focus of the pilgrimage and its entire justification, the spot where every musical group paused to play a song in homage to the town's patron saint while their dancers danced and the TV crew tirelessly filmed them.

San Sebastián deserves special attention in another story, but he was surely enjoying this brief release into daylight from his claustrophobic niche in a windowless chapel. And he should be pleased that, despite his painful history, he is now able to inspire such innocent pleasure for so many people.

In the town square the procession spread like a river at its delta, swirling around dozens of tables hygienically covered with white paper. The town council, astonishingly, contributes giant pans of freshly-cooked paella to this annual event, along with free wine, beer or fizzy.

Cynics might ask why the council should pay for paella and booze when the schoolkids need more books, and what about the potholes in the roads etc etc. But for me it's only wonderful that a local authority should pitch its three penn'orth into a day of such warmth, colour and good cheer.

* Gofio: toasted maize or other cereals finely ground into flour - see the story dated 15 November 2015

Salsa and the widows

Eusebio elbowed me in the ribs. 'Those women need help.'

'What?'

'Those women. They need help. Look at them.'

I looked at them. He was right, they needed help. 'You do it,' I suggested, but Eusebio pleaded exhaustion. Too much wine, too much food. Yeah, me too. But still. Chivalry and all that.

It was party day in the village. A day to eat, drink and enjoy being a little cluster of people living in close proximity who are mostly happy with that. The summer sun was friendly but fierce and our sports ground was clothed with canvas gazebos sheltering tables, food, drink and most of the villagers.

Over in one corner young Crístofer, who knows about these things, had set up a laptop computer feeding chirpy salsa music into two black loudspeakers perched like vultures on tall poles. He was still sulking over being made to keep the volume below denture-rattling level - 'Hey, chico, some of us want to talk, turn the effing thing down!' - but was otherwise doing a good job of keeping things lively.

There is no moment, at these events, when we all sit down at the tables to start eating, nor any identifiable end - the meal starts when anything edible arrives, and people sit and eat or stand and talk as they wish. A relaxed and fluid feast that lasts all day.

Crístofer's salsa music pervaded the air like an aerosol drug that went straight to the feet, causing involuntary tapping and twitching. Men headed for the beer cooler wiggle-walking in time with the music. People abandoned their plates of chick pea stew or barbecued pork in order to dance, impelled by their hyperactive feet.

Rubén, a twenty-something guy who has hyperactive everything, danced wildly with the kids, some of whom would get sick before much longer.

So we were all having a great time, everything was hunkydory and ticketyboo, until - inevitably - around mid-afternoon someone produced a football. Someone always does. It was probably Rubén but I can't swear to that. And football, as everyone knows, is the world's worst bully, it will claim any amount of space for itself and ruthlessly exclude all non-players.

The lads all joined the game and, even more distressingly, so did some of the lasses. And that was the end of the dancing. Crístofer left his disco station to take up position as centre-half for the Red team.

Thus it was for a few minutes. The football took over. But – here was his big mistake - Crístofer had left the music playing. Under the shade of the gazebos, at the tables, fingers still drummed along with the beat, feet still tapped and twitched. And on the margins of the football game five widows lingered wistfully, swaying their hips. Five women who had lost their husbands some years ago but had not retreated permanently into black mourning, had decided that life was still to be lived. They wanted to keep on dancing.

Eusebio, a man who also believes that life is for the living, recognised that things had slipped out of kilter. 'Go on,' he urged me. 'I'll go if you do,' I offered. Okay. We approached the five widows together, offered ourselves as partners and led them gallantly onto the football field.

Five ladies and two blokes dancing salsa on a football field can mess up the game pretty thoroughly. Nobody minded. They must have known in their hearts that we were right and they were wrong.

The goalie at our end started dancing. The Blue team’s star striker caught the ball in his hands and shoved it beneath his tee shirt, shimmying. The ref retrieved the ball, whistled and sent him off. He didn’t go.

Committed footballers tried to continue the game but they were lost. Down at the far end, the defenders turned their goalmouth sideways, probably the best defence anyone has ever invented.

Meanwhile Bernarda, one of our salsa widows, grabbed a plastic bottle full of fizzy orange and sashayed across the field with it balanced on her head. The game dissolved into chaos and anarchy. This was my kind of football.

San Juan and a revelation

Feli and Lali were perched on the wall side by side like twin Humpty Dumpties, watching the sea and an oddly murky moon climbing into the twilight. I touched them both on the shoulder. 'A bit dangerous, sitting here!' Their legs were dangling above a sheer drop of several metres to the beach. But Gomerans are good at heights, they've lived with precipitous drops all their lives. Our neighbours shuffled along the wall to make room for us: 'Sit down, sit down,' but we declined. Too high, too much smoke. 'We'll see you later.' They smiled and nodded tolerantly, accustomed to foreign eccentricity.

The smoke that stung the eyes and yellowed the moon came from the beach below, where party revellers were camped around half a dozen crackling bonfires. They were here in honour of San Juan and later there would be dancing, but as always we'd arrived far too early. It's difficult not to arrive early for Spanish festivities because they always start terribly late. Rule of thumb is to add an hour to the published start time before you even think of turning up, and you'll still be early. But Gomerans are good at waiting too, they are patient people, and an hour to wait is an hour to chat and joke and celebrate being Gomeran.

We retreated further from the beach to escape the worst of the smoke. Mixed with the fragrant and carcinogenic aroma of burning timber was the acrid stench of scorched meat from handheld barbecue forks. I'm not a big fan of bonfires but don't ever say that on San Juan's day.

Also down there on the beach was Leandro the loudspeaker man, plugging cables into black boxes and aiming vast black boomboxes menacingly around him, clearly determined to leave no refuge. Of the musicians there was no sign, no doubt because they were sensibly gathered in a distant bar to ease themselves into the mood.

The festival of San Juan Bautista, John the Baptist, is one of the many Catholic festivals that have appropriated a pagan equivalent. The bonfires were originally intended to inspire the sun at the midsummer solstice, its finest moment, to blaze on in glory rather than sinking towards winter. The strategy has never worked all that well but people live in hope, and the bonfires of San Juan still hold mysterious powers. If you jump over one it cleanses you of evil spirits, or something of the sort, and this forms an important part of the San Juan festivities in some towns. Like bull-running, its main function is for young men to demonstrate their fearlessness to other young men and the more naïve of young women. (Brighter ones say no way, José, no father of my children is going to leap over bonfires.) I have no idea how John the Baptist came to be involved with this, and I doubt if the Pope does either. Stop asking questions, just enjoy.

Around ten o'clock I tired of trying to get a good shot of the peek-a-boo moon and began to worry that the smoke might have ruined my camera. (It didn't.) Put away camera. We wandered up and down the track behind the beach wall, greeting people here and there. Most of those now arriving were hauling insulated food boxes the size of treasure chests, their kids following behind with six-packs of beer and cola. Down on the beach a few near-naked youths were still mucking about in the waves then scootling back to their bonfires to warm up. By now I was also worrying that the fog of smoke swirling around us would leave an indelible scent of burnt resin on my fleece jacket. (It did.)

Leandro the loudspeaker man had turned his attention to the microphones, darting around on the podium under a red spotlight like a performance art event. Adjusting the volumes. Hola? Hola, hola! Tap tap tap. Sí! No! Uno dos tres. No sign of any musicians yet.

Heart slowly sinking while the moon escaped into the clearer air above, I realised that not only had we arrived too early, we had arrived far, far too early. The dance was not going to happen until well after midnight. It would continue until six or seven in the morning, when everyone would wobble off to buy hot chocolate and churros.

This is entirely typical, not only in La Gomera but in the whole of Spain. Which leads me to a theory I've just developed. A revelation I attribute to the festivities of San Juan. How is it, do you suppose, that the Spanish in the fifteenth century managed to overrun such vast swathes of territory, including most of southern and central America, in the face of fierce opposition from so many millions of native warriors?

I think I know. Imagine the two opposing bands - invading Conquistadors and defending Indians - camped for the night on opposite sides of the valley. Oil lamps flickering, meat roasting, wine splashing into mugs. As the stars take hold, supper over, the natives settle down under their goatskins for a good night's sleep before tomorrow's bloodshed.

Just nodding off nicely when, over there on the other side, one of the foreign invaders starts twanging some strange white-devil instrument, the others join in singing and before long there's uproar, you can't hear the wind in the palms or the babble of the stream for the stamping and shouting and strumming carried pitilessly on the cool night air. They're still at it as the sun peeps over the hill, finding the Spaniards fired up and ready for anything, the natives bleary-eyed and knackered from sleep deprivation.

This, I now believe, is the secret of Spain's extraordinary success as a colonial adventurer. Its people do not need sleep. They can party all night while others fall senseless around them. San Juan, this year as other years, was honoured and serenaded without our help. Soon after eleven, with the bonfires burning merrily but still no musicians, we gave up and went home, vanquished like the Indians.