Moros i Cristianos
We are in the middle of a four-day weekend for the Alcoy people in honor of a celebration for which Alcoy is world-reknown: Moros i Cristianos. The holiday remembers the hundreds of years of war with Islamics from across the Mediterranean, and of course celebrates the fact the Christians won. Thousands came today to watch the parade of the Moros (and I think tomorrow is the Christians).
Without a doubt, this was the best parade I've ever seen. The costumes were outrageous: lots of gold and dangles and some head dresses with huge feathers. Some types of costumes. Band after band playing the March of the Moros theme: big drums, lots of clarinet playing in a minor key, and lots of horns, tubas, etc. Some of the masks had dusks extending the jawline, the women from this group kept rhythm using their staff, the dangles jingling like tamborines. Body paint, face paint, little kids dressed up on big floats throwing handfuls of confetti. A belly dance group went by. Several horse-tricks delighted the crowd, including one where the guy rides facing backward and one where he slips down one side of the horse with both feet and bounces off the ground with both legs locked and striaght, and repeats the movement on the other side. One of the best was a palm tree, where the leaves were made up of women dressed in green costumes resembling palm branches, swaying from a top platform by leaning out into the air, held back by some belt system. The trunk was made of other women, dressed in cool brown costumes. The other awesome one was a big battering ram, with dressed-up Christians "chained" to big ropes so that they could drag it along the parade route, the Moros having whips in hand.
This (or more accurately, my attention span) lasted three hours. Before the start, I had been walking through the big plaza where a few thousand people had congregated in normal parade fashion (setting up chairs a day ahead, etc). I saw some people sitting on a wall of concrete blocks about 10 feet high, separating the sidewalk from a work area for a construction site. I figured they had a good view, so I climbed up to join them. But, looking around, I saw the people in the apartment balconies had the best view of all, tossing confetti on the proceedings from a few stories up. So I navigated through the crumbled concrete of the construction site and made my way up to one of the balconies of the hallowed building and watched from there. Felt all the more surreal.
Looking a bit closer at the event made me laugh from time to time. Looking closer, you see 32 oz clear plastic cups being passed down the line of drummers; two straws poking into a brown liquid that I knew must be Cerol, and alcoholic coffee-tasting drink. Looking closer, you can't help but laugh at the guy leading a row of "moros": he's marching in full costume, a cigar lodged in his shit-eating grin, twirling a curved sword in one hand and gesturing slowly to the crowd with his other hand, a open palm gesture of "Celebrate this!"
We're going to take a quick nap before starting our evening tonight.
Without a doubt, this was the best parade I've ever seen. The costumes were outrageous: lots of gold and dangles and some head dresses with huge feathers. Some types of costumes. Band after band playing the March of the Moros theme: big drums, lots of clarinet playing in a minor key, and lots of horns, tubas, etc. Some of the masks had dusks extending the jawline, the women from this group kept rhythm using their staff, the dangles jingling like tamborines. Body paint, face paint, little kids dressed up on big floats throwing handfuls of confetti. A belly dance group went by. Several horse-tricks delighted the crowd, including one where the guy rides facing backward and one where he slips down one side of the horse with both feet and bounces off the ground with both legs locked and striaght, and repeats the movement on the other side. One of the best was a palm tree, where the leaves were made up of women dressed in green costumes resembling palm branches, swaying from a top platform by leaning out into the air, held back by some belt system. The trunk was made of other women, dressed in cool brown costumes. The other awesome one was a big battering ram, with dressed-up Christians "chained" to big ropes so that they could drag it along the parade route, the Moros having whips in hand.
This (or more accurately, my attention span) lasted three hours. Before the start, I had been walking through the big plaza where a few thousand people had congregated in normal parade fashion (setting up chairs a day ahead, etc). I saw some people sitting on a wall of concrete blocks about 10 feet high, separating the sidewalk from a work area for a construction site. I figured they had a good view, so I climbed up to join them. But, looking around, I saw the people in the apartment balconies had the best view of all, tossing confetti on the proceedings from a few stories up. So I navigated through the crumbled concrete of the construction site and made my way up to one of the balconies of the hallowed building and watched from there. Felt all the more surreal.
Looking a bit closer at the event made me laugh from time to time. Looking closer, you see 32 oz clear plastic cups being passed down the line of drummers; two straws poking into a brown liquid that I knew must be Cerol, and alcoholic coffee-tasting drink. Looking closer, you can't help but laugh at the guy leading a row of "moros": he's marching in full costume, a cigar lodged in his shit-eating grin, twirling a curved sword in one hand and gesturing slowly to the crowd with his other hand, a open palm gesture of "Celebrate this!"
We're going to take a quick nap before starting our evening tonight.
posted by Unknown at 8:16 PM
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