Carnaval in Tolosa

Last Sunday (March 3) I headed to Tolosa to check out the Carnaval celebrations with Connie, a friend from school. Although San Sebastian has its own festivities, Tolosa is apparently the place to be in the Basque country. As is tradition, Tolosa celebrates from Thursday to Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

Tolosa is a 30-minute commuter-train ride away from San Sebastian, and the train full of people confirmed we were going to the right place. The number of people in costume was amazing. Many families had coordinated costumes – a family of chickens, for example. The people weren’t the only ones dressed up, so were the buildings, including city hall:

Essentially Tolosa had transformed into a big street party. Instead of a parade with floats, the floats were stationary, and each group performed in front of their float. The themes for the floats were amusing and wide-ranging. Here’s an enthusiastic group of Vikings and a group of dancing cave-men:

Oddly there were two Grease themed groups, a bunch of Canadian lumberjacks, Jesus and the apostles at the Last Supper, and honestly, I’m not sure what these cardboard box creations were supposed to be, but their eyebrows moved, which was a nice touch:

As you can see, the streets got quite crowded with revelers. In addition to the float groups, there were marching bands and a stage for musical groups. Everyone was in high spirits. It seemed like the whole town was out and about, and I would estimate that 85% were in costume. Not me though, costumes have never been high on my priority list. Connie got in the spirit with a Basque beret.

I was disappointed to read that there would be a “sokamuttura” while we were in Tolosa. A sokamuttura is an old Basque tradition where a bull is placed in the street tied to a long rope to limit how far along it can go. People then touch the bull and run around it, typically in order to provoke it into chasing them. The bull also often has its horn tips covered. I ensured we avoided the area where the sokamuttura was scheduled to take place. For me, even if it is a centuries-old tradition, cruelty to animals is unacceptable in any form. We have lived in the Basque country for more than 18 months now and we’d never heard of this practice before. The Tolosa bullring has an artistic statute in front of it – the only portrayal of bull-fighting I need to see:

All in all, Carnaval was a fun event to witness and we enjoyed the spring-like good weather as well.

Hasta luego,

Shana