We got up in a leisurely fashion today as there was no rush to be out. We had a nice breakfast and then did some yoga on the pontoon.
We had decided to head to Huelva today to try to see the Palm Sunday processions. We pre-booked a taxi to fetch us from the marina at 1 o’clock so that we would have time to have a lunch in the city.
I had a good chat to the taxi driver and luckily he had a small booklet with all the routes for the Palm Sunday processions. He also gave us some handy hints on the way. When we arrived we went to look at the Barrio Obrero, Which was the workers’ district built by Rio Tinto. The houses were in the Victorian style but have been brightened up with more modern Spanish elements such as whitewashed walls and splashes of colour.
The Parades
We then headed to a small square to see the start of the first procession which is the one targeted at children, known as La Borriguita. There was a fantastic band, penitents with their pointed head dresses and an impressive float. The video gives you a flavour of the procession.
We then headed off to see the second procession which was a procession of Dos pasos, which meant there were two phases, the first with a float of Jesus and the second with a float of one of the virgins, in our case La Virgin del Polvorín. This was extremely impressive because the number of people required to lift the float was huge – we could see the feet underneath and they had to take regular breaks to rest before lifting it again. When it came to the second float it stopped and turned in front of the Iglesia Santa Maria della Esperanza, which was about three yards away from us so we had a great view, and there was a blessing and incense and chanting from the crowd, which was all very atmospheric.
We managed to get a taxi back because we were quite tired after all the excitement and we had a quick drink in the marina bar and then went back to the boat to round off the night with scrambled egg on toast.
We all had an early night. Dave slept right through, I was bothered by mosquitoes and Marco had to get up at about 2am to retie the ropes as the wind was blowing us away from the pontoon!
