Festivals of Motril
In the first half of August the Patron Sain Festivities of Motril take place. Most of the festive events take place on the week of the 15th of August. These festivals, traditionally, are to honour Virgen de la Cabeza, the patron saint of the town since 1635.
This is a week full of events mostly held in Recinto Ferial del Cortijo del Conde, a fairground where there are religious acts, an amusement park, music performances, sport events, fireworks at the beach, etc. But the most representative event is undoubtedly the so-called Taramela.
Taramela
Photo: Maximo Lopez (Flickr). License: CC BY-ND
Taramela is a tradition commemorating the transportation of sugar canes to the trapiches, mills used for the juice extraction from the sugar cane to manufacture other products. This festival is organized by the winery Ron Montero, recalling the most traditional and authentic things from the agriculture world of Motril: the smell of burned cane, flamenco, blackened faces with soot, donkeys carrying the sugar canes, etc.
There is a parade where we can see follargos, people representing foreign workers that used to come to Motril from other areas or regions to harvest sugar cane; monderos, the ones who used to clean the sugar canes; (que limpiaban las cañas de azúcar); tacheros, works at the old sugar factories looking like colonial farms where they have the utilities to process the sugar cane in order to manufacture sugar, rum, and other products. The set of all of them with their donkeys represent the three phases of the sugar cane harvest.
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Date: the week of 15th August.
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