Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata

Since I arrived in Colombia, and a little bit before too, everyone was telling me about the Festival Vallenato like about the ultimate madness. And here we were, few days before the festival started, traffic laws changed (no motos after 18.00), the city was slightly transforming and the people were going crazy...The legend behind the festival is a pretty nice and very catholic one. It is said that during the Spanish occupation, when the Spaniards were trying to Christianize the indigenous tribes of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, while they were haunting them through the deep forests, the indigenous poisoned a fountain from which the Spaniards drank being killed them right away. It is said that than the Virgin of Rosario came and did the miracle of reviving them and giving them strength to kill the Cacique (indigenous). Even today, this legend is being celebrated by the catholic church, the festivities including also a big celebration of the death of the Cacique...Unfortunately...because the arhuacos are one of the most peaceful tribes, having a profound understanding of the nature and its relation with humanity. In Valledupar, nobody is working during the festival, so we were on holidays too. The madness started on Friday with Piloneras parade. A colorful parade formed of tens of dance groups performing El Pilon. 65 folklore groups presented the Baile de las Piloneras, a traditional dance from the Valle de Upar (where the name of the capital of the district gained its name, Valledupar). The Pilon is a tool that the women used to crush corn and the Pilon song was the song they sang during their work. As time went by, it developed into a dance, and today it is one of the most typical elements of the vallenato culture. People were gathering around on the both sides of the street despite the high temperature and the burning sun. The dance it's really energetic and full of joy, the parade has a crazy rhythm, color and passion.

This is just a glimpse of the awesome parade that I really enjoyed. What came after it was more or less hell...cause, even if I live close to the street where the parade took place, it took me like forever to get home because all the city was blocked, a huge amount of people was trying to make its way out of there and everything was a chaos. And the chaos continued for another 4 days in which people from all over the country came to attend the festival and the city became overcrowded and impracticable. The next 4 days were all about accordion contests, reggeton and vallenato performances in the Park of the Vallenato legend. Since I am not very much into this kind of music I just went to see Juanes and I was really impressed with his performance and I had a lot of fun.