More of Merce

While in Barcelona we also got to see some of the other Merce festival events. One of these was the Fire Run.

I'm not ure exatly what this part of the festival was, something about chasing the Devil away , I think. Anyway we atended the junior version where small children ran through the street carrying large poles with sparkler kind of things on the top. The sparkler thing spun around spraying sparks of fire onto the crowd! 

Periodically the sparkler would go out with a loud bang and one of the adults walking around with a torch would light a new one for the child. Other children would also run around the fire-carrying-child and try to get into the sparks. When it was about to 'bang' the children would all huddle down on the ground together! It was very interesting to watch though a little frightening. 

 We were told that the adult version, later that night, was similar but larger sparklers and more fire. At the children one everyone covered their faces and heads with scarves and hoods, at the adult one you had to make sure you were very covered and some people would jump into a fountain before the even so that they wouldn't catch their hair or clothes on fire. How is this legal? My American could-get-sued-for-anything mind couldn't really understand it, but I'm so glad I got to see it!

 My favorite event we got to see as part of the festival as the Human Tower Competition. It was incredible! We went early and staked out a good spot to watch. It was crowed but we could still move a bit and the four of us could wriggle through the crowd a little if we tried hard. When it was time for the event to begin security guards came through the crowd to make a path. My friends and I quickly linked up arms and became more smushed together than I thought possible. I didn't see my feet for a good hour or so and a few times, just for fun, I tried to see if I would move if I lost my balance. Nothing happened. I've never been in that dense a crowd before, but again, totally worth it!

Apparently the point of this event was to build a tall tower of people then have a tiny child climb to the top and raise up her hand then climb back down. They build their towers right in the middle of everything so we got to see them really well. Unfortunately because I was smushed between people and couldn't really move my arms for most of the time I was only able to get my camera from my purse and take a couple of pictures right before we left.