El Colacho
El Colacho or most commonly known as ‘Baby Jumping’ is celebrated during the summer in the Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia.
It shows the triumph of good over evil… No one really knows about the actual origin of this festival!
During the festival, a red and yellow-masked ‘devil’ runs through the streets whipping everyone with a stick. Crazy, right?!
All the babies who were born during the previous year lay on mattresses in the street and the ‘devil’ leaps over them. It is believed that the devil takes the sins of the babies away and offers them protection from disease and misfortune.
If you tell your Y8 students about this festival, they will absolutely love it!
La Nochevieja de Bérchules
Bérchules, which is located in Granada, suffered an powercut during the New Year’s Eve of the 31st of December 1994. This meant they were not able to follow the ‘bells’ on TV and they were not able to welcome the New year.
Because of this, people decided to celebrate the first edition of New Year’s Eve in August and it was so successful that, since then, they now repeat the same tradition each year.
The people in this small town celebrates this festival with great pride and they also receive visitors from other places. It is a very popular festival!
Would you like to try something a bit different? Then come to Bérchules and celebrate New Year’s Eve in the August hot weather!!
Castells
This festival, also referred abroad to as ‘Las Torres Humanas’ are built by members of different groups who are normally part of annual festivities in the main cities of Catalonia, Spain.
The human towers are formed by ‘castellers’ standing on the shoulders of one another in a succession of stages.
Normally the towers have between between six and ten people but the are towers which are extremely high!!!
I was lucky to see this festival in person and it is very impressive! Very different too!
Looking to visit Cataluña? Don’t miss out ‘Los Castells’ which are celebrated in June!!!