Canoa Beach Party
Maija and I were recently invited to attend the Canoa San Pedro San Pablo festival, and walk with the Black Team as the Padrino and Madrina (God Father and God Mother) of Canoa. Basically, this is a two day festival in which half of the town dresses in all white to represent the saint Paul, which in spanish is San Pablo and rest of the town dresses in black to represent saint Peter or in spanish, San Pedro. Maija and I felt very honored to be the “god-parents” of the black team. On the first night, everybody meets up at the church for mass and then they carry their respective shrines in a procession around the town. After the formalities, the two President’s mount horses and have a sword fight “to the death.” Of course, since this is a religious ceremony, not really to the death but they definitely try and knock each other off their horses onto paved streets, so there is potential for some blood shed. After the horse fights and parade in the streets, there is some music from the local children in the band and lots of food. On the first night, it is the custom that the White team wins and is served dinner by the black team. However, the next night is the night for the Black team! They scream, “Vivo Los Negros!” which means “Long Live the Black Team!” The town is excited for this because as the legend goes if the Black Team wins there will be a good harvest for the next year, and the sea will offer up more fish. As you can probably guess the Black Team wins every year. After being served an amazing meal the entire town erupts into a dance party in the streets…..until 8am. It was a lot of fun, especially since we had our friends here Dave (Camel Jock) and Kate here to experience this with us and see how Canoa really comes together as a town…especially to party! Enjoy the pictures.
