“You possibly can’t put on that flamenco costume for the El Rocío pilgrimage, Bonita,” Maria Cárdenas, our Airbnb host, mentioned with amusing. “You’ll die within the warmth.”
She pinched the thick crimson material between her thumb and held it as much as my face like a specimen. “You see? Heavy tight attire like this are made for the festivals on the bullring in Seville metropolis,” she defined. “You want light-weight stretchy polyester for pilgrimages — for using, strolling, dancing, siestas within the grass.”
The El Rocío pilgrimage is a high-octane non secular spectacle — a multiday annual fiesta, held in Andalusia, the southernmost area in Spain — of flamenco attire, caravans and non secular fervor that appears to develop ever stronger, regardless of the ever-waning affect of the Catholic Church.
Members can spend months in preparation: planning menus, hiring tractors, arranging for caravans. It additionally requires the collection of a costume that allows the wearer to alleviate herself behind a bush whereas exuding all of the class of Goya’s Duchess of Alba.
Having studied for a 12 months in Seville in 2012, Kevin, my collaborator, has lengthy dreamed of returning to doc the pilgrimage of El Rocío, which was canceled for 2 consecutive years throughout the pandemic. My connection to Spain is more moderen: I moved to Mallorca final 12 months after deciding that life is just too brief to not reside on a Mediterranean island. Kevin and I repeatedly work collectively on journey assignments, and when he informed me about El Rocío, it was a simple sure, as a result of the easiest way to get to know a brand new nation is to social gathering with it.
Though we have been documenting the 2022 pilgrimage (this 12 months’s will probably be held on the finish of Might), we have been additionally taking part in a celebration. Andalusia — famed for flamenco dancing, cowboy tradition and pilgrimages — has a definite and seductive id that folks within the south of Spain are rightly pleased with.
The El Rocío pilgrimage is arguably probably the most potent visible illustration of Andalusian tradition, and it’s this, as a lot as non secular zeal, that propels tons of of 1000’s of pilgrims towards the shrine of the Virgin within the village of El Rocío. Some journey on foot, others atop elaborately embellished caravans. Many are on horseback: stiff-backed and spiffily attired riders in wide-brimmed hats, high-waisted paseo trousers and cropped guayabera jackets.
On our first day, Kevin and I wandered by Doñana Nationwide Park, some 40 minutes south of central Seville, foraging for the pilgrims we have been assured could be there. Finally we heard the faint tinkle of cowbells, the clap of horses’ hooves, creaking caravan wheels, the strains of flamenco guitar, voices singing in unison. Inside minutes, the dusty highway had reworked right into a pageant. Caravans rolled previous. Pilgrims pressed bottles of Cruzcampo beer and slices of cured Ibérico ham into our fingers. The singing reached a crescendo.
In Spain, Catholicism is taken severely. However so is beer, ham and cheese — even at 10 a.m.
Many Andalusian cities, cities and villages developed their very own pilgrimages — often known as romerías, so named as a result of pilgrims historically walked to Rome — devoted to their specific patron saints. However the four-day stroll to El Rocío has achieved cult standing.
In response to legend, a statue of the Virgin Mary was found in a tree trunk many tons of of years in the past, within the marshes of the Guadalquivir River. For a few centuries, devotion to this shrine was confined to the encompassing cities of Almonte and Villamanrique de la Condesa. However by the twentieth century, in celebration of Pentecost, hermandades (brotherhoods) of pilgrims have been strolling as much as 4 days to get to the world — from the world surrounding Seville and Huelva, and finally past Andalusia, from Madrid, Barcelona and the Balearic and Canary Islands. At night time, the hermandades would camp within the forest, dine collectively at lengthy tables and dance flamenco round campfires till the truth of the following day’s 15-mile hike couldn’t be ignored.
Kevin and I share an obsession with worldwide festivals. His impulse is to seize portraits, mine is to hear and be taught. However wherever we go, Kevin and I are likely to fixate on the faces.
At El Rocío, no faces have been closed to outsiders. We have been invited into caravans; informed to take a seat and eat stew and sliced watermelon; dragged into flamenco dances; and instructed to take a siesta after lunch within the grass — in any other case we’d “by no means survive till Sunday,” one participant informed us. Nobody we encountered was reluctant to be interviewed or photographed. Everybody appeared to just accept that El Rocío is a spectacle. Our amazement and curiosity was obtained as an indication of respect.
We joined the caravans within the muddy waters at Quema, a ford within the Guadiamar River, a tributary of the Guadalquivir. Within the city of Villamanrique de la Condesa, each restaurant and bar was spilling over with spectators. (El Rocío is televised like a sporting occasion all through Spain.)
By Friday night time, the primary of the hermandades arrived in El Rocío, a tiny city that jogged my memory of Western film units I’ve seen in California and Arizona. Its character is fully formed by the pilgrimage; the extra distinguished hermandades — like Huelva, with its 10,0000 pilgrims — personal large boardinghouses on the fringe of city, with convent-like rooms and huge communal eating and dancing areas. The smaller hermandades simply search for short-term leases. Even with our newbie’s Spanish, we have been ushered inside a whitewashed home and given beer, chunks of manchego cheese and slices of cured ham. It struck me that almost all Spanish culinary staples are basically pilgrim meals: managed decay become a delicacy.
In El Rocío, we discovered non secular fervor within the streets, within the Churro shacks, within the hermandades themselves. However there was additionally fervor for fervor itself. I’m the Irish daughter of a Presbyterian pastor, raised on no-frills non secular celebrations; tea and a scone is as decadent as Presbyterian celebrations get. In El Rocío, I discovered myself intoxicated by the pageantry and rituals, and by the concept a pilgrimage can and also needs to be a supply of revelry.
Friday night time melted into Saturday morning, and Kevin and I discovered ourselves chatting with two younger pals from Madrid — of their 30s, like us. Younger folks used to need to escape from non secular traditions, they informed us. However El Rocío presents them an escape, they mentioned, from the stresses of recent life.
“I like El Rocío, as a result of it’s the one time of the 12 months that my complete household will get collectively — no excuses,” mentioned Carmen Mora, 32, who works for a journey tech start-up. “It’s wholesome to neglect about metropolis life for every week — my metropolis garments, the know-how, my job, the stress.”
“It’s good for the spirit to be immersed in custom,” she added.
