San Patricio, Jalisco
Whiz Bang Boom
St. Patrick’s Day is a BIG DEAL down here. The neighboring town is San Patricio, so it is a whopper of a patron saint festival. You wouldn’t think it but that’s the deal. It actually goes on for 10 days. Every day the local churches launch fireworks at dawn and dusk, much to Axel’s consternation. Booms no good for dogs.
Last night we went to San Patricio for the final fireworks display. A team of guys spend hours rigging up a massive tower that is ignited somewhere close to midnight and the blasts go on for almost an hour. The square is packed with thousands of people there to participate. This would be the noisiest thing we have ever been to. The square is full of bands-let’s say 6 or 8 of them, hard to tell. Each with their own amplifiers. And Sousaphones. THEY ALL PLAY AT THE SAME TIME. FOR HOURS. You can stand in front of one, walk 30 steps and there’s another. It’s a cacophony of the highest order and a real eardrum endurance test. They do like things loud down here in Mexico!
But that’s just the warmup.
It’s like the State Fair, but with the possibility of being set on fire.
Because then, why not, they begin to light this massive tower of sparks and flame in the middle of the square. Yup right in the middle of the crowd. This is the sort of thing that would demand a 500 yard perimeter and 17 fire trucks in the US. But here, folks are all up for taking their chances as the mortars fire and the sparks fly. It does feel a bit like being in a war zone. With Sousaphones. (Not like we’d know what that is really like). You have to pay attention because you don’t know what’s going to come flying at you at any given time.
After the tower burns, they kick thing up a notch with the “Torrinos pirotécnicos”, or “Little Flaming Bulls”. These are paper mache bulls that are covered in fireworks. Folks grab on to these and RUN THROUGH THE CROWD spitting fire and sparks and whizbangs everywhere. It is completely random and chaotic and the crowd loves it. Kids especially! Hey it’s 1AM, let’s let some kids run around with fire and cause injury and burns! What a great idea!
It’s like the State Fair, but with the possibility of being set on fire. We found a semi-safe area on a raised area of grass and watched the mayhem unfold. A number of fireworks came at us but none connected.
This has been going on for years and years and we are fortunate to have had a chance to experience it. And we didn’t catch fire so that’s a bonus!