Santa Ana

I knew I would like Tudela before I even arrived for one simple reason: each summer they have a week long fiesta in honor of Santa Ana that starts on my birthday! I've always thought July 24th was the most important day of the year ;) And what´s not to like about a place where everyone agrees with me!

So what is Santa Ana? A week-long party is the short answer, but its really so much more than that. It's a week to celebrate Tudela: it´s past, present, and future, all of the unique traditions, culture, music of this town in any form they may take. There is a calendar of events for everyone from kids to grandparents about 20 pages long, stretching from 6 am to 4 am every day for a week straight: bulls, concerts, dances, a huge fairgrounds set up along the river, there's even a competition to see which Tudelano can gain the most weight during the week (with a leg of jamón as the prize) or grow the best tomate feo, one of Tudela´s prized crops. It´s an explosion of Navarran pride, the little sister of San Fermin in Pamplona (but minus the post-Hemingway tourists), a week of magical, overwhelming madness.

July 24th, the town wakes early, dressed all in white (the official fiestas uniform, complete with a red belt and red pañuelico) for an almuerzo (an early lunch) with friends and family before heading to the square at noon for the chupinazo, the official start of fiestas. The cries of "Viva Navarra! Viva Santa Ana! Viva Tudela!" are followed by the cohete (rocket). Only once the rocket has exploded and can the pañuelico be tied around your neck!

The best birthday party EVER

Viva Navarra! Viva Santa Ana! Viva Tudela!

This photo only begins to capture the number of people crammed into the square!

One of my favorite events was the dancing that takes place in the square every night between midnight and 1 am. At midnight, a band in the center pavilion begins to play traditional folk music and Tudelanos gather in a circle around the band to dance a series of traditional Navarran dances for the next 40 minutes.

Around 12:40 am, the band transitions into what is certainly one of the weirdest (but most fun!) events I have ever participated in: La Revoltosa. As the band begins to play, the circle of dancers starts to walk in a circle around the band. As the band gets faster, so do the dancers, until they are in a full-sprint around the circle. This continues for twenty minutes, while the band teases the dancers, sometimes alternating constantly between fast and slow, sometimes going an infuriatingly long time at a slow pace until the crowd is booing and whistling, sometimes even packing up and exiting the stage until the crowd begs for more. Yes, a crowd of people (including kids as young as one year!) actually do run in a circle for twenty minutes at one in the morning, every night for a week straight. What can I say, Tudela is a weird place ;) But its surprisingly fun and a really good workout. Do this for a couple nights straight and you won't be able to walk for the rest of fiestas! For a little sampling of the insanity, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvPB8S8Dlqs. Skip to the last five minutes, unless you want to spend a full half-hour watching people run in circles!

The blur of the Revoltosa

Maybe the most visible sign of fiestas are the gigantes that parade the streets during the seven days of fiestas. Gaiteros (the men in the red berets playing those short black oboe-like instruments) typically accompany them, playing jotas while the men carrying the giants hop and twirl to make the giants dance. At the end of the week, children come to say goodbye to the gigantes and leave them a little gift! (Click here to read my post from last October about this bizarre little tradition!).

Tudela's 4 most famous giants, representing some of the most important Navarran kings and queens.

Sancho and his collection of pacifiers!

Another key element of fiestas are the charangas, small, informal marching bands that parade through the streets of Tudela and provide the soundtrack for most of the important events during the week.

Of course the bulls are also part of Santa Ana: like in Pamplona, there is an encierro (the running of the bulls) every morning at 8 am (which I did see) with a bullfight at 6 pm every afternoon (which I did not see). There is also a smattering of less-famous bull-related events. Each morning after the encierro, they also do what is called the vaquillas, or little cows, a less-violent alternative to the bull fight, where men try to drop a ring onto the cows´ horn. There is also a running of the bulls for kids, where stuffed bulls are wheeled through the streets and kids can chase after them and a toro de fuego (fire bull), basically the cardboard outline of a bull with sparklers on it, that runs around the main square every night.

The encierro, or running of the bulls

The vaquillas

Kiddy-sized running of the bulls

Toro de fuego

Of course, they don´t forget about Santa Ana, their patron saint! July 26th is the day dedicated to Santa Ana, and it includes a huge procession in her honor.

My favorite day of fiestas was the comida popular, a huge lunch that several groups in Tudela co-organize. Basically, they sell 1000 tickets to this enormous lunch, fill a huge plaza with long picnic tables, and serve up a 4 course meal. There is of course a charanga band present to entertain during the meal, and after the lunch, they led the huge crowd of 1000 back to a park near the main square where they have a DJ set up for the rest of the afternoon and night.

The first course, a mushroom and vegetable scallop-shaped pastry

This is what 1000 people eating lunch together looks like!

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and on July 30th (well technically the 31st, since its after midnight) at 1 am, the town gathers again in the square for the pobre de mi (poor me). Once again, a rocket announces the official end of fiestas and as the charangas file out of the square everyone follows singing "Pobre de mí, pobre de mí, se han acabado las fiestas y sin dormir!" which translates to "Poor me, poor me, fiestas are over and without sleeping!" All I can say is that truer words have never been spoken! I´ve never seen so many tired people in one place; the entire crowd looked like there was no where they´d rather be than in their bed asleep. As sad as it is to say goodbye to fiestas, the prospect of a good night´s sleep helped a lot!


I was afraid to take my camera out into the crowds, so photo credit to Romero Mayor and Ruben Rodriguez Garnica from the Fiestas de Tudela and Cafareles y Randillas Facebook pages for most of the beautiful pictures on this page!