Festival Sant Joan

The Night of fire. This happened 3 weeks ago! Sorry to be writing about it only now. I have not managed to sit down and write about it yet. So here goes. Summer is officially here. Once the Summer Solstice has come, it is time to celebrate. On 24 June the city came out to celebrate again!! They do celebrate a lot here... This time it was the Festival Sant Joan. The next day is a public holiday of course so no work for the tired partygoers after the night of hard partying. What happens is : the city packs up and goes to the beach with picnic dinners and bottles of alcohol in the evening. Being the longest night, the sun shines until late (after 10pm) and then rises early again so it is possible to be there from dusk to dawn I guess – though I was not. The beaches are a hive of activity. There are bon fires on the beach. Fireworks light up the sky all along the coastline. The dangerous part of this is that there is no control on the fireworks. Small kids were walking around with sparklers in their hands and teenagers and adults were setting off fireworks ad lib amongst the crowds. The beach was packed. People kept arriving at different stages. I went with an Argentinian guy I had met that week – who was in Barcelona, for 2 weeks, as part of his world tour. More about him later or in another posting. We claimed a small piece of ground on the tightly packed beach. Around us there were several interesting groups of people. In front of us were some Moroccans who were smoking the hubbly bubbly pipe. They were generous enough to let me have a puff. A nice apple flavour!! To the left of us was a group of blondes – Scandinavian or German looking, who were not responding to the flirtatious advances from the Moroccan boys. Behind us was a big Latino family with aunties, uncles, grannies, kids etc. They looked like they were moving to the beach with the amount of stuff they had brought with them. They also seemed very tired as some of them were falling asleep with babies in their arms. To the left of us were a group of Italian girls. Some of them took their clothes off and went swimming in their underwear and threw some of their clothing onto the bon fire! One girl was jumping back and forth over a small fire before she took off some clothing and burned it in the fire. Then she went swimming in her underwear! As you sit on the beach the constant harassment from the beach vendors continues. They want to sell you beer, cokes, samoosas and whatever else they can. I liked Pablo's firm stance with the vendors “Non, Gracias”. They did not persist with him like they do with me. In the early hours of the morning the beach became so crowded that the people around you were almost on top of you. At that point you have to say something to the maddening crowds who encroach on your space. So the night went on, we sat and watched the others around us : people swimming in the sea, people skinny dipping, some people streaking on the beachfront and the fireworks going off everywhere - whilst we chatted about the world, life on different continents and our own experiences. The beach bars played loud music and I do remember one song very well “ Barbara Streisand” by Duck Sauce. Otherwise, this was an eye-opening experience and another late night. I managed to get to bed at about 5am!!

The beach in the late hours of the early morning

Bonfires on the beach