The Cervantes Festival

Since Alcalá de Henares is the birthplace of Cervantes (and thus, some claim, the true birthplace of Spanish culture) it is not surprising that he and his work are celebrated throughout the city. Everywhere, there are bronze or iron or wooden Don Quixote characters and his recreated home is open for visitors. Childrens’ parks and tourist shops are dedicated to the characters in this most-famous work. Cervantes’ recreated home is open for viewing. And, every year on his October 9 birthday, the town shuts down to celebrate him, his work, and the period he lived in. This year Cervantes Day fell on a Thursday; every business throughout the city shut down and the Medieval Festival was erected and opened in the early morning.

The festival is a market, a gastronomical adventure, and a chance for Alcalá dwellers to bugger off work and drink a cheap bottle of cider. It’s crowded and fantastic, somehow beautiful and wretched at once, addicting and frustrating, like any festival across the world. Because the festival blocked our main path to work and markets and cafes, and because Craig and I liked it, we walked through it at least twice a day, pushed and pulled by the crowd and lured by the merchandise, and by the time it closed on Sunday we knew the booths thoroughly and often visited our favorites to pine (and be reminded of the thin state of our wallets!). There were tented palm readers, acrobats, musicians, made-up men on stilts, fire blowers, dancers, bird trainers with their troops of decorated eagles, owls, and hawks. There were potters, wood carvers, bakers, candle makers, ironsmiths, soap makers. There were burro rides and petting zoos, face painting, and beggars. There were vendors of all goods: shallow baskets of spices, burlaps sacks of healing herbs and teas; great molding, pungent wheels of cheeses, ropes of garlic and linked chorizo hanging from the wooden eaves of the booths, cured pig thighs and fat slabs of pork, baskets of salted sardines and vats of olives;


freshly fried potato chips, roasted corn, endless tables of cakes and pastries, homemade ciders and wines, freshly baked breads, cardboard cones of roasted chestnuts, dried fruits, and candy; aloe vera plants and products, potted herbs, dried bunches of lavender; freshly cut and aromatic chunks of soap, handmade candles, hand-dipped incense, carved and dyed and perfumed wooden roses;

jewelry made of stone and clay and metal and leather and shell and watermelon seeds; gemstones, bows and arrows, knives, wineskins, leather shoes and bags, medieval clothing, belly dancing costumes; kids’ toys, drums, bird whistles, balloons shaped like Spider-man and panda bear; Cervantes t-shirts, plates, and cards. There were restaurant booths with beer, wine, and tapas (appetizers, usually small sandwiches or crudités, that accompany a drink), plates of fried pig back fat, grilled ribs and chorizo, and every other cut and preparation of pig you could ever desire.

There were pulporias with their great copper vats of pink liquid and tentacles—the octopus is boiled then chopped into pieces and served with a sprinkling of paprika. There were booths for mojitos and pina coladas, crepes of all kinds, Arabic tents serving sweetened Tunisian tea. There was the smell of cooking pork and smoke in the air, complimented by the candles, soaps, perfumes, herbs, and the occasional stab of sewage.

It was very interesting and enjoyable! I would be lying though, if I said that I was upset when the vendors broke down their booths and disappeared. After four days of crowds, of late night yelling in the street, the smell of cooked pig clinging to my clothing, and the children—with their relentless drums and bird whistles and bows and arrows—I was glad for some quiet.
more pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124961&l=66f2e&id=6312129