“You HAVE to come to our local village carnival! It started on Thursday already but if you come today, you’ll see the costumes and the final parades. Bring an overnight bag. And be prepared to speak Spanish… It’s about an hour from Valencia, I’ll drop a pin of where you must come.” (This was all from Ruben in Spanish to me on WhatsApp and I used Google translate to make sense of half of it!!)
I decided last minute that I’ll indeed go and check it out since I was in nearby Valencia. Why not? You only live once… and the Spanish sure know how to throw a fiesta.
I came to Spain for the first time when I was in my 20’s – to escape the grey London skies. It soon became an annual pilgrimage while I was working in London; and then in my early 30’s I experienced my first Spanish carnival in Gran Canaria. Las Palmas Carnival is arguably the 2nd biggest carnival in the world after Rio. We had a blast dressing up, dancing, and drinking in the streets then.
But I’d never heard of a place called ‘Villar Del Arzobispo’ (or simply Villar) before I made some Spanish friends from there while trying to learn Spanish in Valencia. And I’m sure few people reading this will have heard of this place or its festival either. More history on that later. I’d heard of and been to Pamplona, seen the Tomato Festival and knew that the Spanish love a good fiesta. But this excursion was all going to be new to me.
The drive from Valencia was pleasant and I noticed a few new or retarred/upgraded roads. On arrival I was eagerly met at my car, and was ushered towards where the parades were already happening and the sounds of drums were ongoing. There were colourful live bands, and most people were dressed up. Considering that further afield, Russia had just recently invaded Ukraine, I took a moment to appreciate that humans have culture and tradition that sometimes supersedes the negative elements that we often focus on. The sounds of rockets and fireworks here in Spain was totally safe and a contrast to what was happening on the other side of Europe – until I got caught in the crossfire of some cracker flames which I hastily brushed off my clothes… and a few people around me ran for cover. In laughter. This was all fun and joyous.
Centre stage in this specific parade was a cage which contained a giant fuzz-ball shaped coronavirus depiction. Amidst the fireworks and flames it was being carried and tossed about by a team of people carrying it up and down some streets towards the town square next to a school (which previously housed a hospital) – where it was finally set alight on a burning bonfire amidst the joyous live band tunes and drums, then people formed a circle moving around it while it burned, as the rest of us spectators looked on happily at this virus pandemic hopefully ending its deadly spree – literally and symbolically.
I was then escorted to the other side of the village to Ruben’s childhood home where I had the pleasure of meeting his family – and his mother had lovingly prepared each of us a baguette with chicken and potato for a takeaway lining for the drinks we’d consume later. I was warmly welcomed as if we were teenagers; and the hype of the big annual town festival was apparent. Then I was also shown my bed for the night (all in Spanish) and warned about the ‘urinal’ system (which is really using a chamber pot under your bed in the night as the bathroom is downstairs on the other side of the property). I met Ruben’s sister and his niece and nephew and was reminded of the love within my extended family spread across the globe. These were all awesome friendly, down-to-earth-humble-and-hearty people. We grabbed the cava and some beers I brought with me, with the foil-wrapped baguettes, and Ruben’s sister (dressed like a female warrior) drove us the short distance back into town when she’d collected another female warrior friend along the way. We then made our way to Fran’s house where we danced, ate our baguettes (I wasn’t sure if their parents also made theirs as they had their own), had some drinks – and tequila – and prepared for ‘the parade of the sausage’.
Hang on… Parade of the sausage? Like in a vienna? No, a giant depiction of a Morca blood sausage. More on that later.
Sadly, it then started to rain but the revellers were still out in full force. Hundreds of people of all ages were still in attendance, including family groups where the whole family were dressed in the same costumes, groups of teenagers, and even some grandparent-looking folk. They were all there. Everyone seemed happy and excited, and the raindrops wasn’t stopping any fun.
From a massive bonfire, people were handed burning sticks and they started a human walking procession on opposite sides of the road across from friends or family members. The streetlights were switched off. Then I saw the sausage. It looked like a huge… never mind.
The sausage was giant (for a moment I wondered if it was real meat), lying on its back with a mask on its face. It looked like a happy worshipped sausage on a sun lounger with around 30 people carrying it: 15 on a side. The carriers were all dressed in black with flame trimmings on their hats and coats. There was a band immediately behind the sausage.
I asked my friends about the significance of the sausage or its origin and was simply given a website address. My brain was fried trying to understand a lot of the Spanish being spoken, and English was not forthcoming, so I decided then I’d research the sausage and google translate it all later. I need to ramp up my learning Spanish.
The procession was rhythmic… a slow marching tune; and then for a few seconds the band would speed up the tune and the carriers of the sausage would start tossing it about in excitement and the spectators started jumping around and cheering. Then the music would slow down again to a march, and we’d all walk along until the end of the street when the rain got heavier before fireworks displays and the sausage being set alight.
For a moment as the heavens opened, everyone ran for cover, and we headed back to our party spot. The rain caused the main performance stage to close so we had our own mini party at our private venue before the rain stopped altogether and people gathered outside again. Although the stage hadn’t reopened, a makeshift DJ box appeared on a balcony of a building nearby and the party continued well into the morning. We had our drinks in the street and danced and partied until 4am when the music stopped, and the revellers all headed to the bakery for snacks and the streets started emptying out. What an awesome time!!
In my research (thanks Google Translate), I found that the festival is celebrated 40 days before Easter by ‘combining tradition and modernity; giving rise to an original party full of spectacle, colour, joy, and participation’. During the Franco dictatorship until 1975, Carnival in Spain was prohibited and lost popularity, but then quite recently, in 1981 this town’s festival was ‘rescued from oblivion’. The dressing up and costumes was to ‘hide’ in an outfit originally from household items like sheets, baskets, and pillows. Back in 1935 a character with a cape and long cane with a dried fig was intended to provoke children to try and eat it. Since 1982 new elements were added and in 2003 a summer carnival was also introduced in this village with the Morca sausage also featured – but it was not burned. The sausage is simply symbolic of a favourite food type for the locals and on the Thursday, the first day of the pre-Easter festival since 1993, 1,500 sausage sandwiches (morca and longaniza) and Villar wine is distributed by the Commission to the locals. The giant sausage is carried from the workshop where it is built on the opening Thursday to a place where it will wait until the Saturday – the day of its cremation and burial.
On the Friday of the festival there are children costume parades; a ‘botargas’ parade (which looks like people dressed in sheets), a Murgas Contest which was introduced in 1986 for music (on the stage that was closed on Saturday when I arrived due to the rain) with lyrics for all to follow; and then on the Saturday the Carnival Parade kicks off with musical bands and prizes for costumes.
At the peak of the festival in the early 1990s the carnival attracted up to 25,000 people. In 1985 a new element was added after the Carnival Parade on the Saturday where a public figure that represents the most negative values shown in his actions is paraded through town in a cage and then burned on the bonfire which burns from the Friday night. This was the symbolism of the coronavirus that I saw being burned. And this was followed by the ‘Morca Burial’ parade as the conclusion to the parades. This is like other festivals at the same time including the Las Palmas burial of ‘La Sardinia’. In the village of Villar del Arzobispo, the ‘La Morca’ pays homage to the blood sausages that is typical of the local gastronomy. Every year the sausage adopts a different character like a pirate, princess, or king. Traditionally the giant Morca sausage was filled with rockets that exploded in all directions when it started to burn, but with recent ‘health and safety’ type of regulations, this is no longer done.
In my research on the village of Villar Del Arzobispo I found that the lands were inhabited since the Bronze Age (3300 BC to 1200 BC), then also by the Iberians and the Romans as confirmed by excavational research. The town changed hands in ownership by lords since 1236 and from the 1300’s to 1795 there are recorded historical records of rulership. During the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s there are records of the town being a field hospital, military airfield and containing anti-aircraft shelters. Today the area is used for adventure sports including horse-riding and paragliding.
On the Sunday after the end of the carnival, the streets of Villar del Arzobispo were spotlessly clean with just the burnt-out framework of the caged coronavirus and giant Morca sausage; and Ruben’s mother, Raquel, served up the best seafood paella I’ve ever had! Congratulations to the lovely town of Villar del Arzobispo’s down-to-earth and friendly citizens for celebrating life so wonderfully and thank you to them for welcoming me so warmly.
A Night at Villar Carnival written by John Thackray – one of the international Thacks Awards panelists, living in Spain. When not traveling and wine-tasting, John is an iGaming specialist reporting into director level in the sports betting industry with a degree in Information Technology.
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