Los Abrigos

For the last day of my trip, I had seen a lot of adverts for a restaurant in Los Abrigos, along the coast on the southern most edge of the island. So I booked a table. It may seem odd to spend an entire day around going to a restaurant but why not? 

And it turned out great. Once I got there. Sunday buses are always an issues and my first bus never showed. So I scrambled to get another (I love mobile data) and caught the second one on time. And the nice bus driver (I had many lovely bus drivers that day actually) let me know when I needed to get off.

Los Abrigos

The town, well village really, reminded me of Padstow in Cornwall. And Sunday was the last day in their week long festival. Which was a bit like May Day but more religious.

Celebrations.

Service.

The gathering turned out to be a service of some sort. I took a few photos and people watched. I felt really sorry for the priest and was amazed he carried in for so long. It must be a really important service because it was another super hot day. He must have been melting.

Giving service

They love having these statues and carrying them out for festivals, which they also love.

Idols.

Virgin Mary (who later on nearly took a header)

Not everyone was interested in the service. This guy was determined to keep fishing, no matter what. Though I doubt he caught anything, given the number of people jumping into the water and the number of boats.

I will fish!

There were lots of flowers around and it was all very colorful. And from what I can tell, alcohol soaked.

flowers

Part way through the service, a group of boats showed up, loudly hitting their horns and yelling on the loud speakers. They were part of the parade but the timing wasn't the best. The poor priest had a hard time competing.

Boats arrival.

Religion meets carnival.

Decked out.

The sign helped informed me that this was for San Blas and the Virgin Carmen. Which honestly didn't help at all. I later found out it is to bless the fisherman and their boats.

San Blas

After the service finished, they took the statues to the boats. One was on wheels. The others were carried by pole bearers.

Sailing to the boat.

Virgin off for her trip.

The little guy tried to help. So sweet.

They put the statues on the boats. Which were docked 2 deep. This seemed like a very tense time.

Off to the boat.

nearly...

They then proceeded to stuff as many people onto the boats as possible. Which did not seem like a great idea. I had a table booked and decided that was probably for the best. Though I was curious how many people it would take. Frankly it was chaos. But everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Everyone on board. 

There were also lots of smaller boats joining in. Again with no regard for the maximum limit of the boat. (My favorite was the moored little dingy. I thought it was so cute that some one had gone to the effort of mooring it.)

Moored dingy.

Precarious.

Nothing say festival like a flashing virgin Mary

After some confusion and interesting maneuvering, the boats set off to visit one other sea ports and fishermen.

Ready. 

Briefly going in very much the wrong direction.

And they are off.

And peace reined once more for a while. So (after changing as I was super hot - no one paid any attention), I headed to lunch. :) My restaurant was very nice and had a lovely view.

Great view for lunch

The food and wine was great and I ended up chatting to the Irish couple sitting next to me who explained the festival and some more cool places to visit while I am here. We had just finished when the boats came back. They love the loud speakers and once they returned it was basically time to start partying.

And they are back

They had to get the idols off the boats again and back up the hill. It was at this point we heard loud yells and I saw the Virgin Mary nearly meet her end which would have been a very bad omen I am guessing. (Never trust very drunk pole bearers. It is unlikely to end well.) They managed to save her and get them all safely up the hill. Though how is a mystery since some of them coming back down were having great difficulty walking in a straight line.

Up the hill

I felt sorry for the priest. The poor guy look exhausted and over boiled.

Preist just wants to go home.

The music then started. And I decided it was time to go home. The buses once again took their time, but thankfully my second bus driver was as sweet as the first, told me where I needed to get off and even drew me a map of how to get to the next bus stop. Which I would never have found without the map as it required some death defying trips across a motorway roundabout to get to. It took about 3.5 hrs to get home and I was exhausted when I made finally it. You save money on the buses but not time.
Monday was a bank holiday here so I could sleep in (Yippee!) and Skype friends, before spending the afternoon working. (Well you can't have too much fun after all!)