“You could tell that people wanted to party after two years of absence due to covid,” says the mayor
The full capacity on the eve of Los Labradores at the municipal sports center during the festival, after the concerts by Tío Matt and El Vega, heralded that there was a desire to party, and this Sunday the people who packed the streets of the town of Santa Lucía de Tirajana showed that There was a desire to party accumulated during the two years of suspension of one of the most popular pilgrimages in Gran Canaria due to the covid pandemic. The good weather accompanied the party that brought together, according to the Local Police of Santa Lucía de Tirajana, more than 17 thousand people during the morning of this Sunday. The celebration continued until late in the afternoon.
In the kitchens of many houses in the town of Santa Lucía, Sunday dawned with family and friends around a table with chicken soup, garden herbs, and bread. The mothers had to be warmed up after a night of concoction and festival. Araceli gives advice to the visitor while she serves him the soup: “do not mix the concoctions, drink only from one house, so that you do not feel bad.” For months now, rural houses and holiday homes in the upper area have been booked for this weekend. European tourists and people from other municipalities come to the Los Labradores Pilgrimage every year.
From 10 in the morning the carts and floats begin to be placed at the starting points, on one side of the town. Little by little the parties are arriving. As soon as the Canary Islands mass ends in the church, the first timples and guitars of the parrandas begin to sound. The accordion and the tambourine are not missing. In a party next to El Mirador, the singer and actress Tania Gil sings: “Gentlemen, I don't believe it, gentlemen, oh what a joy, that after these two years, we are on a pilgrimage.” The satauteño singer José María Dávila appears with the timple on his shoulder and also joins a party as one of the others.
“Joni's friends” is the name of the first cart. Joni López Duarte left too soon, at just 45 years old in September 2018, the pandemic added to the mourning, but this year friends and family wanted the former municipal notifier and researcher of our traditions to be present. Joni's brother, Esteban López, attends to food and drink requests from revelers and companions from the cart. There are pork rinds, there is cheese, there are wrinkled potatoes, there is concoction, there are olives, there is everything except rush, which is why a journey of just over a kilometer takes several hours to complete, in Los Labradores you have to live every minute with intensity.
There is also the float of the Santa Lucía and Los Labradores Festival Commission. Its president, Omara Ramos, does not stop responding to people's requests and is excited "there is a great atmosphere, the town has been full of people these fifteen days of celebration, it was obvious that there was a desire for Santa Lucía and Los Labradores ”. The carts and floats continue walking, each one with its name and its party: 'El paradero', 'La Revoltosa', la Parranda del Cura', La Sorrueda, 'Pepe's friends, Los Sitios and 'La Quesera'.
The mayor of Santa Lucía de Tirajana, Francisco García, also distributes concoction that he has made at home. García believes that “all Gran Canarian people wanted to return to normality and we are noticing that today with this extraordinary atmosphere.” The first mayor adds that “Los Labradores has already established itself as one of the most important and participatory pilgrimages on our island, where all the elements of the Canary Islands are expressed with the music of the parrandas, the concoction, the mantecados, the chicharrones, cheese or wrinkled potatoes.”
