«Garachico. One of the most beautiful villages in Spain!». And point. It is the resounding welcome given by the town hall with the legend that can be read on the wall of the Villa y Puerto football field, which yesterday celebrated the pilgrimage of San Roque, or San Roquito, depending on the affection that is professed. And it is a big pilgrimage because the town presided over by the nationalist Berto González also has its small version of the pilgrimage, which was held last Saturday, and then the magicians’ dance. Without truce. And so since 1960, when the pilgrimage of San Roque, the patron saint of the region, was organized for the first time, and the assessment has weight coming from Borja Lynch, a young pro from Icodense.
The saint leaves at nine in the morning from his temple that presides over the Garachico marina, on a pilgrimage to the church of Santa Anta and back, at half past six yesterday afternoon. It is a unique pilgrimage, admits Mariano Pérez, who would have held the Mayor’s Office of the Pilgrimages if it existed. The municipal councilor of El Sauzal has been seen in Candelaria, both on August 14 – when the ceremony of the Guanches is celebrated in the afternoon, with a backpack on his back, like one more pilgrim – and on the 15th, in the large delegation of mayors who met in the morning to participate in the solemn function, this time with a suit and tie, defying the very decree of energy saving.
Like Mariano, also the former president of the Cabildo Carlos Alonso or the island councilor Cori Yanes, who even with a sprain slows down the pace, broke the maxim that says: “he who goes to Candelaria does not go to San Roque because he is crushed from so much jogging,” La Culata photographer and lover of traditions, Ángel Hernández, recalled yesterday. Of course, the long suit of August 15 was changed for the typical clothes, and they were left behind on the way when the saint was already heading for the church of Santa Ana and both Carlos Alonso and Cori Yanes forgot the protocol to converse with the neighbors and visitors in the square below, where a silk sculpture had been placed precisely yesterday to remember that since 1970 the lustral festivities have been celebrated that commemorate another chapter that marked history: the eruption of the volcano in 1706. Precisely this story, as well as the architectural characteristics of Garachico are the arguments that the guide that makes the Masca-Garachico-Icod route has been explaining to tourists for ten years. «Today we do not stop at the pilgrimage; we would need all day », he explains.
Midday. sun of justice From the mass of the pilgrims, which took place in San Roque at 9:00 a.m., to the solemn function presided over by the priest of La Orotava, in the church of the parish of Santa Ana. As if it were a passport, There isn’t a self-respecting pilgrim who doesn’t carry one of the sticks that Alberto Díaz makes. Although he was born on August 7, 1960, the same year that the San Roque pilgrimage began, he inherited from his grandfather and his father the custom of making sticks of ribbons. This year he gave about four hundred to the children in the small pilgrimage on Saturday and for yesterday he prepared 2,500 in the free time he has left in his profession in the hospitality sector, with the complicity of his relatives. Again and again neighbors and visitors approach. “They are not given away; each one is 50 cents and the money that is collected is not for me, but for the saint », he repeats like a sungunete.
The rod of the pilgrims and the ajijides –very sharp guttural sounds– are the hallmarks of this pilgrimage.
To enter the church is to enjoy the sky due to the pleasant temperature that contrasts with the solajero; and it is that at twelve noon there is no shelter in all of Garachico. On top of that, heavenly music sounds: the Canarian mass performed by the group Tigaray, from Los Realejos, which under the direction of Samuel Fumero has not given up. On the night of August 15, he sang in Candelaria in the folklore anthology in which five soloists participated and in which Los Majuelos danced –and not Tajaraste (as was included by mistake) among other groups. Then Tigaray dressed his most modern clothing and yesterday, the typical one.
In the streets surrounding the temple, it is a coming and going of neighbors who leave their house to head for the cart, like Manu Domínguez, one of the alma mater of the local murga Los Ferrusquentos – who usually does such a good job in the regional contest. “My cart is number 13, and it’s one of the big ones,” Manu invites the visitor.
Between isas and folías that serve as a musical base for the church songs, the function ends, which has been brought forward, so time must be spent before taking San Roque out towards the square below and then near the old port, always carried on his shoulders and after one of the neighbors starred in the jump of the shepherd when he jumped from the roof of a country house. The astia clears on the cobblestone and seems to do so on the soul. But it remains sunk vertically to the general astonishment.
An ambulance prevents San Roque from being taken to comply with the blessing of the seafaring pilgrimage; “There are only two fishermen left”, argue some of the unconditional, while the pilgrimage returns to the temple of the marina.
Thanks to the fact that the three island councilors who represent the PSOE they are dressed in typical clothing, it does not happen as in Candelaria, when some pilgrims said as President Pedro Martín passed by: “The representatives of the forces of order arrive”, to ensure, when they saw Carlos Alonso, “the Cabildo arrives”. The pilgrimage continues between cobblestones and ends at half past six and ties with the dance in San Roque. The pilgrimage of one of the most beautiful villages in Spain and, therefore, one of the most beautiful pilgrimages in Spain.
