Bus Trip to Crevillent

On Friday 2nd April, about 50 of us piled into a lovely 54 seater coach and left from the bunker in Relleu to Crevillent, which is south of Alicante but none of really knew exactly where or how big a town it is.

It seemed to be a fair size town, and after disembarking the bus we walked through  a few streets, then uphill to Constitucion square where all the heavily decorated floats were on display. We then wandered back down to a converted internet cafe where there was food and drink galore laid on for us.

It was typical fiesta food of round bread things that would crack your teeth if you tried to bite a bit off, a little bit of cold fish with whole cooked garlic as a side dish, fresh green broad beans still in the pod, cocas (no nothing terribly exciting as the same might suggest - cocas are like baby pizzas) and slices of cheese.
More importantly, there were bottles of beer, wine and soft drinks all there for the taking. All I really wanted was a coffee - honest!

Seats had been reserved for our party and the other busload from Finestrat, which I thought was a really nice gesture, and we were handed free baseball caps in a plastic bag full of pamphlets about the town and the procession(s).

Was it 11am the procession started? Round about then anyway, and we watched as different parts of the procession passed us by. Everyone wore the most beautiful costumes, though the suggestion of the Klu Klux Klan was a little disconcerting.

Some groups were all in red, others in green, others in blue, or purple and I have no idea whatsoever at this point in time what each group represented.
The children, even the babies, mostly wore costumes in their team's colours.

Many of the marchers - no they weren't marchers -  amblers maybe, as they walked at such a slow pace - threw sweeties to the children in the crowds.

The heavy floats were something else. Their lifters had the burden of carrying a heavy weight across their shoulders up and down the steep streets. Some floats have 20 people to the front and a further 20 to the rear, but even more had 26 front and rear making a total of 52.

There must have been hundreds of not thousands of participants. There were loads of bands who joined them, brass bands, drummer bands - all playing typical Valenciano music.

Anyway, after a while a few of us needed the loo and went off in search of one. Well the Spanish aren't big on public toilets, so of course we ended up in a bar! That was - me, Kerry, Sam, Julie and Mark.

We had to have a beer because it would have been considered rude to use their facilities without buying anything.
While we were in this bar, a poor woman collapsed in a diabetic coma. She wasn't quite in a coma and asked several times for azucar which she didn't get for a good 5 minutes, despite her being surrounded by what I assume to be family and friends, and a local bobby who seemed to do nothing but watch proceddings.
Then some bampot opened a sugar sachet and gave it to her directly! I'm surprised she didn't choke! Anyway would it have been too much for any of them to have given her coca-cola. We are always reading about how much sugar is in it, so it would have been excellent.
Anyway, paramedics arrived promptly, checked her blood/sugar level and administered some glucose before lifting and sitting her on a chair outside.

By the time we left, she had recovered but was weepy and upset. The ambulance was long gone.

That wasn't our excitement over for the day.

We then returned to see the end of the procession in time to watch this big group of people walk on by, without robes or uniforms on. I just thought they were family and friends of the processionees, until they burst into song.
They were a full choir, and they sang as they walked with their conductor walking backwards in front of them. Luckily there were no small dogs for him to fall over.
This choir was amazing. I am so glad I didn't miss them.

Then it back to the bus and off to a surpise location for lunch. The place they chose for us was beautiful. It was in a big room that might have doubled up as a conservatory with full length glass frontage overlooking a wonderful swimming pool area, with loads of palm trees and other greenery to amble through and outside seating for the smokers amongst us.

Lunch was disappointing because it was the same food we'd received earlier with the addition of a paella. I like paella normally but this one wasn't too good. More wine and beer and finsished off with the coffee I had craved all day long. The coffee was great, but we were being ushered to the bus by this time so I had to drink it really quickly.
Then it was off home with loads of people half-cut by this time and completely clueless as to where the bus was during its journey!

General consensus is that it was a great day, so many thanks go the Town Hall and Teresa for organising it for us.