On a warm and sunny Sunday such as today, with a billion tiny jewels of light winking in and out of infinitesimal existence on the lake's surface and the almond and cherry trees in bloom, this is a spectacularly beautiful place. It's a quiet beauty and Sundays are particularly still, even by Viana's standards. There will be a few people about having vermouth around what Brits would call lunchtime, enjoying the sun at a table outside one of the bars, but you could easily walk around the parts of the village away from the main square and see nobody.
That quiet, and the village's small size, is often reinforced by the one sound other than birdsong that you can reliably bet will intrude into the hush - the church's bell. In Britain we've all heard them chiming the hours, of course, whether it's the currently silent Big Ben or the local church bell, but here the bell has other jobs to do, and the fact that its sound can be clearly heard across the whole village enables it to do those jobs most effectively.
It of course marks the time on the hours and half-hours but at noon on Sundays it can also be heard calling the faithful to mass (at the same time, discordantly, that it chimes the noon dozen). It also serves a much more poignant purpose. If you hear the chime in the video below, you know a funeral has just started or somebody has died. The sound is appropriately mournful and, despite the large number of children in the village at the moment, it's an ageing population on average, so it's heard regrettably frequently.
(Excuse my fingers.)
Despite the sad use to which it has to be put, I find the bell to be a reassuring presence in general. In the absolute silence of night here, if you can't sleep, it sounds through the dark like a nightwatchman, marking your wakefulness in half-hour increments. Where some might find that disconcerting, I find it a comforting indication that all is well. It even has the common decency to ring the hour twice, the second time a minute after the first, so if you're only half aware of it ringing (was that five or six?) you know you've got another chance to listen properly in short order.
I'm told that once upon a time the bell performed warning roles, letting people know if there was a fire, flood, plague of locusts or whatever. Nowadays we have a shiny new alarm, tested every few months, which will alert us if the dam upstream fails and we have to get to the high point of the village pronto, but how you were supposed to tell these warnings apart back then I can't tell you. Not knowing if we were about to be burned to a cinder, drowned in a muddy torrent or eaten by zombies (I'm assuming they'd have tolled it for the zombie apocalypse...) I'd probably just run around doing this:
until some professionals turned up to deal with it. So I'm more than happy with just the three jobs it does now, thanks.
So, the big finale. In Brazil, they mark Mardi Gras with huge, glamorous parades and elaborate costumes. In New Orleans they throw beads into the crowd, decorate coconuts and bake cakes with tiny baby figurines in them, purportedly to represent Jesus. Here, the flouring reaches its epic climax, the folion all come together for the burning of the lardeiros and a funeral is held for a giant sardine. (I know. I'll come back to that later.)
I've never been to Glastonbury but veterans all seem to talk about the mud years. Well here in Viana the rain, if it comes on the Tuesday as it did this year, turns the ground not into mud but glue. We'd been lucky so far this year but on Tuesday it absolutely shat down, thinning the numbers who'd usually attend - people don't want to ruin €300+ drums - and ensuring anybody who did attend will be picking rock-hard globules of solidified flour out of their hair and ears for the next couple of days, regardless of how assiduously they try to wash them out.
The lardeiros, as I've said in earlier entries, are the Carnival made manifest, and they're set ablaze at midnight on Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, or whatever you want to call it), bringing the flour attacks to a close. As you can imagine this makes people go all out to get the last flourings in for another year. Usually pretty much anybody who has a drum or an aixada will be there, beating the folion as the Lardeiros burn. It's a pretty visceral experience even when the square isn't completely packed because of the weather. This film is from 2012:
The world feels like it's shaking with the noise - the thunder of drums and trowels being struck is absolutely deafening. Bangers and aerosols placed inside the effigies pop and explode while this is happening. How are they set on fire? I'm glad you asked. In a move which would give any H&S exec in Britain palpitations, a bloke who may or may not have had a couple of cold drinks himself is hoisted up to the figures on the back of one of those telescopic platform things, soaks them in something highly flammable like petrol or whatever it is, and then torches them using a long, burning stick from the ground.
And how they burn. What remains is often still smoking well into the next day:
Ouch. Gonna need some cream on that. Photo: Emilio Ortiz Rodriguez
If the bars were busy on the weekend, they're absolutely heaving on Tuesday. One or two of the bars' owners take the opportunity to close for the night, or part of the night, to have one Carnival night out themselves, forcing more people into fewer bars. I knocked it off at about 2am this year but for most people this is the night that goes on 'til 7 or 8 in the morning. There's usually a band - cancelled this year because of the heavy rain - and a costume competition, and they don't even start until after the lardeiros burn.
Wednesday marks an almost instant return to the village's usual quiet. Immediately there are noticeably fewer people about and the streets are cleaned of the flour. Most bars are closed for a clean-up which takes a good couple of days, and some remain closed for a few days' well-earned rest. It just leaves the sardine funeral to the year-rounders or the few who hang back beyond the end of Carnival.
Oh yes, the sardine funeral. In another pyromaniacal episode, a six-foot-long sardine, constructed of a cage wrapped in tin foil and, once again, filled with explosive materials, is mounted on a trailer and paraded through the town. Locals follow, in funereal black, lamenting the sardine's passing. When it reaches the designated spot in the Cabo da Vila, the old town surrounding the castle, it burns in similar fashion to the lardeiros while people stand ludicrously close to it and await the comestibles. Free red wine is distributed liberally, and real sardines - barbecued on an enormous fire at the scene and served on bread - are consumed in large numbers.
At the end there are torrijas, a sort of cinnamony French toast. These are not much to look at but they're absolutely delicious and many of the locals make them, meaning each one you sample is slightly different from the one before. I can't tell you how many of these I can wolf down but my record doesn't bear imparting here, on account of the shame it would bring me to report it.
A stroll back down the hill for a coffee in the nearest bar and that really is it. All over bar the blogging, until the sound of the folion beats over the village early next year and heralds the coming of another Carnival. The locals hold a funeral, I think, because they feel genuinely sad for Carnival's passing. Its importance to them finds arcane expression by this burning of the sardine effigy, and if that doesn't seem to make any sense, then you need to come out here and experience this for yourself to see what I mean.
I mentioned that Sunday is a big day in Carnival. It's oddly timed, following (as Sundays tend to) what for most people is a long, boozy Saturday night, but that's just how it goes at this time of year. Deal with the hangover, get up to the town and partake of the hair of the dog which bit you. You can't miss the parade.
Viana do Bolo is the name of the county, for the want of a better word, in which our village sits, as well as the name of the village itself. It actually comprises around 52 villages of varying sizes, ranging from tiny hamlets of just a few dozen people up to Viana itself. In terms of geographical extent, Viana do Bolo is actually one of the largest counties in Spain, albeit one of the least populated. Many of those villages have their own folion, their own drum beat, and they go visiting each other during the week to drum and enjoy the hospitality, given freely, of the locals. But on the last Sunday, everybody comes to Viana to join the parade.
Each village's folion will come down behind a banner proclaiming from where they've come. From the top of the town they come down through the village, stopping to drum at the main square, and then up to marquees alongside the sports hall for a lunch laid on by the council. Many of them come in bright costumes, and some also put together a carroza, what we'd call a float. That is to condemn the things with a wildly inadequate description, however, because some of these can be absolutely extraordinary. The good people of Quintela can usually be relied upon to deliver here.
This tank, which fired sweets at everybody, is from 2015:
And this, in my view the most spectacular of all, is from last year:
I have no idea how long these things must take to put together but can only imagine they work on them all year. This year's carroza from the Alternativos, a group from Viana itself, was a merry-go-round mounted on the back of a car, revolving as they went. Amazing work, done out of a love of Carnival and for no other reason.
You also get a decent look at the boteiros in the first video, whose crowd control job I wrote about in this entry. As you can see the square is rammed. This is pre-lunch, so there's a roaring trade in vermouth as well as beers and coffee. Many of the bars lose a decent percentage of their glasses during Carnival because people buy their drink, take it outside and never bring it back, moving on to another bar as is the custom here. It's clearly worth the losses, though, because there are more customers about now than at almost any point during the year.
So, to lunch. As I said, those in the parade have grub laid on for them, but everybody else has to make their own arrangements. Many try to cram in one of the few local restaurants. Others have a big feast at a friend's house, gathering in a bodega. For those fortunate enough to have been able to secure tickets, it's the Festa do Androlla, which will be celebrating 50 years in 2020. Androlla is a large, reddish sausage, spiced with paprika. It's a local thing, hugely popular here, but wouldn't be to everybody's taste I think. It contains, you see, large chunks of bone, better to infuse the thing with flavour. It also turns the water in which it's boiled for an hour and a half a deep, bloody red. For the squeamish it isn't. It's typically served with grelos (turnip leaves) and boiled potatoes, but is only one of four courses at the Festa.
So about 1300 people gather in the local sports hall, to enjoy soup, then the Androlla, then lacon, a salty, gammony bacon, then bica, the local cake. Each of these courses is repeated - that is, the dozens of waiters serving the long tables come round with them offering seconds each time. This is supposed to start at 2.30 for a 3pm opening course, but this is Spain after all. The parade will last over two hours and usually runs late anyway. This year's first course was served at almost 4pm. People don't seem to mind too much - there's wine on the table and friends to catch up with.
Androlla, grelos, spuds, chorizo and lacon. Twice.
Plus three other courses, obviously.
Galicians are a gregarious bunch normally, but this is a particularly bad spot if you happen to be suffering a hangover headache. Often the local folion beat will be drummed on the tables, the sound of a thousand spoons cacophonous and deafening. When the waiting staff first stream into the hall with the soup course, whoops and cheers greet them. Often a group of folion or bagpipers will march in to accompany the coffee and liqueurs which round off the thing. It's raucous, informal, friendly and strongly recommended as an experience.
The sound of this lot beating the tables with their spoons has to be heard to be believed.
This actually represents a slightly trimmed down version of what used to be served, by the way. It sounds ludicrous but I really miss the slow-roasted lamb, served with lettuce in a vinegary dressing, that used to be served as well! You didn't need breakfast or dinner when you had a ticket for the Festa then. Or breakfast the next day.
To help with the feeling of being full fit to burst, a queimada is served last. This is a local fire water, the fire bit being quite literal, which burns brightly in large cauldrons until ready. To say it'd put hairs on your chest would be to understate its power. It's very, very strong stuff but at least sears off the feeling of not being able to move and enables people to file out and head home.
This is pretty much always a cue for me to roll downhill to the house for a siesta, but apparently lots of people head out for more drumming and more drinking after this. I may be used to Carnival by now, this being my 18th I think, but I really don't know how anybody who eats at the Festa is capable of going out and getting back on it afterwards.
Apparently on Monday there's a children's parade and free hot chocolate in the square but I can't honestly say I go out much on the Mondays if I've been to the Festa do Androlla because I just lop around in the house feeling full up and making plans to diet. You have to be ready, after all, for Tuesday, the biggest night of them all.
So Thursday was comadres, the day the women have free rein to go after the men and one of the biggest nights of the Carnival. It is, fairly understandably, a much bigger night in terms of numbers of people going out than compadres. On Wednesday night, at midnight, the Lardeira is hoisted into place alongside her male counterpart. The ladies then have 24 hours of flouring without comeback from the lads. This is an appalling photo - sorry - but gives some impression at least. As you can see, they've both been amended so they're now more typically - how can I put this? - profane.
The word Carnival has its roots in the Latin 'carnem' or
'carn-', meaning 'flesh'. That carnal route is still
pretty evident in the Lardeiros.
On Thursday, generally, groups of women will gather in themed fancy dress, organise a large dinner somewhere and then hit the bars for copas and dancing. Flour and folion are of course much in evidence too. It can be a long night for many - I certainly woke up with an inexplicable(!) headache on Friday. Staying out 'til six or seven in the morning is not uncommon, though age and drink-lightweight tendencies mean I don't last until such rarefied hours.
A note on the flour. Nobody has been able to give me a definitive answer on when it started, or why. There are conflicting theories, but it's certainly old, and it's (to my knowledge) confined to a small corner of Galicia. Traditions evolve, of course, but the classic delivery should be a handful applied to the face, below the nose, and rubbed in from ear to ear, preferably catching the victim completely by surprise. You should go home with the bottom half of your face completely white, like you've been bobbing for apples in a basin full of cocaine. A clean face at the end of such an evening doesn't say much for your popularity. (Or it speaks well of your powers of evasion and sprint speed).
I have of course seen variations on this theme. Some young'uns (tsk) pull a trailer around behind a 4x4 and hurl flourballs of the white stuff in crunched up newspaper. And a couple of years back another wrinkle caught out acquaintances of ours - we had to meet a Brit and an American who were friends of friends, who'd heard about this and came to see it. Though we didn't know them, they were easy to spot - wearing clean, respectable clothes, standing still in the square watching what was happening with bewildered faces, they made easy targets. We'd barely had a chance to introduce ourselves before the American found herself deposited into a bath, filled with flour and being dragged around town, to better enfariñar anybody who caught the eye of the group pulling it. She emerged looking like a ghost version of herself. 'Welcome to Carnival', I thought, but they both later distinguished themselves with how well they threw themselves into the whole thing.
The town is full, and the bars are full, like almost no other time of year. Pretty much everybody comes home for this - we've already spoken to friends who've come back from Madrid and London. Others are arriving this weekend from Vigo, from Valladolid, from wherever they may be. The rooms in our house will all be full of visitors in need of a bed for the night.
It's difficult to overstate quite how important this is to people here, who take great pride in its genuine tradition (this is not something made up to coincide with Carnival to attract visitors, as happens in many enterprising councils), and they wouldn't miss it for anything. I've been told of a Vianese living in Valladolid years ago who, unable to get time off work to come home for Carnival, couldn't contain himself and got into 'legal difficulty' for flouring somebody in that city who obviously had no idea what this nutcase was doing.
Today will be a bit quieter, but tonight is obviously a very big night, not being a 'school night' for 99%. As late as we may turn it in this evening, Sunday is a big one. The folion parade and the Festa do Androlla are not to be missed. I'll tell you about that Festa in the next entry, as any cacophonous celebration of a large, bony sausage is deserving of its own entry. (And no, that wasn't a joke.)
