Sometimes lady luck is on your side! I got into town on Sunday around noon at a place called Tacuba (ta KU ba), El Salvador. It's a tiny town of a few thousand that is near the northern edge of a national park. I put up my stuff in the only hotel in town, where I was the only guest and the patrona (owner) told me that her house was my house, and she really meant it! I walked around town and got some fresh papusas, which are filled with beans and cheese, around which some sort of delicious bread/masa/potato type mixture that is griddled in a skillet til golden brown topped with fresh cabbage slaw (a sort of cabbage salsa of carrots, cilantro, a little spice and fresh lime) and drowned with fresh salsa on top. The locals eat them by ripping off a small piece with your paws and putting a bit of the cabbage mixture on top, and soaking the bread in the salsa but I failed at that so I got a fork.... weak, I know. Fantastic little things though, and it only cost $1.40 for 2 and a coke (in a glass bottle, no less!!). Then I walked around to everyone in towns suprise. They looked at me in amazement, as if they had never seen a gringo before. The looks of shock and wonder quickly changed to smiles as a simple 'buenoss tardes' really does go a long way around here. There was a three day festival going on and the town was really buzzing. There were street vendors selling all kinds of food, games where you try to throw a ring around a coke bottle to win a small prize and tons of families gathered around the town square.
The purpose of the festival has to do with the harvest, which is why all the trucks are decorated with fruit and vegetables. Each truck later got into line and paraded up the lesser drag, then down the main drag to the church. The festival is said to have Catholic origins, but locals told me that it was one of the few times a year that everyone was welcome to come into the church, more correctly that even though it was religious the excitement of the town transcended anyones particular faith. It was really cool to see the genuine excitement!
The festival is called "Las Primicias" and each adorned truck in the procession carried a princess whom the town voted on at the end of the festival on Sunday night. As the trucks rode by, the beds of the trucks were filled with friends and a small band playing folk songs. The princesses would throw candy to the people on the street as they watched the procession. The excitement of the crowd cannot be described in words or pictures. Luckily, I had my smart cap on and started taking video with my camera. Unluckily for you, this town has had a pretty slow internet connection over the last few days (i'm told it's usually a lot faster) so im having trouble posting the video. When I do, please watch at least two minutes worth, when one of the princesses spies me filming and chucks candies at me. You see the camera shake and hear me laugh. I'm not sure who won, but if I coulda voted, she was my girl! Again, sorry to make you wait, as soon as I can i'll get it working on here.
This festival happens only in Tacuba and nowhere else in the world. It is not the kind of thing that people seek out but as a clumsy traveller, I felt like the luckiest gringo in the world to have stumbled into this town on this date. I later found out that the festival was delayed a few weeks due to "problemas" which made me feel even more lucky. The people seemed to welcome me into their festival which made it all the more special. My new friend Manolo, who runs a tour agency down here, was so excited to see the video that he copied it to his computer after we figured out that the connection was not allowing us to upload the video. He said that he was very excited to share this video with 300-400 people whom he wanted to show a little piece of his hometown. Hopefully I can get it on Youtube today, but until then, a few pictures will have to do.
