Traditional festivals folklore and fairs Canary Islands

It is one of the most popular romerías in Tenerife and the Canary Islands. The festivities begin with the election of the queen. Several sports competitions are organized, including Canarian wrestling. The procession consists of decorated carts, boats, folk groups and cattle, which is blessed at the end of the procession. The end point of these festivities is marked by the "lazy man's burn". A mannequin made of straw and dressed in old clothes who represents a public figure is burned between shouts, criticism and insults.

They take place in different towns in Tenerife: Puerto de la Cruz, Santa Cruz, Los Realejos and Guía de Isora (Playa Alcala and Playa San Juan). During these fishermen's festivals, the statue of the Virgin, preceded by a dance of ribbons, marches in procession from her hermitage to the beach where boats decorated with colourful flags await her. The fishermen take the statue aboard one of the boats, accompanied by the dancers, the standard and the priest.

This ancestral festival of the "pond" or Party del Charco, proceeds in San Nicolás de Tolentino, into Large Canarie. This festival was declared of cultural and tourist interest. Delgado there Venegas, which was bishop of the Canaries, arrived in 1776 at this village and lives that men and women of the village bathed naked in a species of pond "marciega". Scandalized by this show, it excommunicated all the inhabitants of the village. The current inhabitants still remember this anecdote and they continue to bathe in the pond, but equipped, and one benefits from this opportunity to celebrate a competition of fishing there based on techniques of yesteryear and which evolved with the years.

The festival of San Miguel Arcangel begins on September 9th as every year and takes place in Tazacorte, in the west of the island of La Palma. Then there will follow a wide program of activities of all kinds that will last until October: cultural, religious, music, exhibitions of old cars, paintings and sculptures... and the famous parade of Caballos Fufos, horses (made of cardboard) with multicoloured fringes and occupied by dancers. This tradition goes back more than 100 years to the arrival of the Cuban carnival here.