Manizales is a city located in the middle of the Colombian mountains, where the richest coffee in the world grows. Every January on the first Saturday of the year, the largest carnival in Colombia starts. During this time, the city is flooded with thousands of tourists from all over the world. One of the main events during this festivities is the International Coffee Pagent where beautiful girls from all of the coffee-grower countries participate. There are at least four parades with different themes, and activities every day where most are free to the public from concerts, theater, comedy stands, sports competitions and more.
A lot of our traditions come from the Spanish culture, mainly in my city. El Festival Taurino (picture above) is an event that includes a massive parade throughout the city, and it ends at the bullfight ring. In the middle of the image, it is a sculpture from a local Catholic church of Virgin La Macarena (that also traveled in the long parade). It is believed that she is the protector of the matadors, and it is a tradition for them to pray to her before getting into the arena. Once they arrive at the ring, the lights are turned off, and everyone lights up a candle, followed by a minute of silence to show respect to the patron saint. An interesting fact of this bullfight at night is that the matadors do not wear their usual flashy outfits, they wear traditional Spanish men costume in brown colors. It is also a tradition to donate all the earnings from this festival to the city children’s hospital.
Festival Taurino
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One thing that I find fascinating about cultural traditions is how they inevitably intersect or connect with each other and ultimately create an endless string. From what I understood about your post, the Festival Taurino is at its core “just” a celebration focused on bullfights. Yet, despite this origin as a spectacle, the festival expanded its dimensions to include art, such as music, and, by associating a saint with the matadores, even religion. I think that this example illustrates quite neatly how having a small baseline cultural background can result in closer ties due to the aforementioned “strings” of meaning we create.