A Taste for Travel

It’s March and today is the first of the month and the first day of Las Fallas! This is the Valencian holiday celebrating the transition from Winter to Spring. Wait a minute… it’s 14:00, PLUG YOUR EARS! The Mascletas are exploding and you can hear it from literally anywhere is the whole province! Anyone lucky enough to be nearby the amazing explosive exhibit of intense pyrotechnics should be wearing earplugs and opening their mouth so their ear drums don’t LITERALLY burst.

Every single day (and on some days twice, as it happens again at midnight) at City Hall thousands of colorful handmade firecrackers and fireworks explode. Valencia actually offers a college degree in making mascletas. They take their fireworks demonstrations SERIOUSLY around here.

We weren’t coming to Valencia and missing this insane event. Jagger and Bhakti went to the market first, then arrived early and saved some fruit from their shopping and enough spots on the sidewalk right up front. Zach and our friends the Davis family joined us and soon the massive crowd began to form around us. Thousands of people came to hear and see this spectacular explosion-fest. We waited for a couple of hours, then suddenly we saw a flash of smoke in the air and we opened our mouths reflexively as the first one went BANG!

Then a second! Then a third! Then so many explosions we couldn’t begin to count them all! BOOOOOOOOM!!!!

The smoke filled the air, we couldn’t even see the buildings anymore, chunks of ash fell onto our hair and clothes, the people danced in the streets, they sang, and the marching band played, “Valencia Fallas!” It was a once in a lifetime event and we are so glad we got to witness it firsthand. Overall, we completely enjoyed going and witnessing this awe inspiring pyrotechnic marvel. Later, we all agreed we would listen from the safety of our flat in a not too nearby neighborhood for all the rest of the month. Everyday we knew the second the clock struck 14:00 🕑💥

On a more serious note, this year was the first accident in 22 years during mascletas, and it happened not 10 feel from us. A firework shot straight into the crowd breaking the glass door of the bank behind us and sending more than 30 people to the local hospital. Amazingly, we didn’t even notice and only learned about it later from a news outlet. The sound was so intense almost anything could’ve been happening near us. It was such a stroke of luck that when Jagger and Bhakti had first arrived she picked a spot to stand, but Jagger wanted to move about 10 feet over to the other side of a bus stop under a tree. Had we not moved that firecracker would have come smack into us. A near miss and an extraordinary, (likely never to be repeated) opportunity to experience something very unique to start off our experience of Las Fallas. There was so much more to come!