On the penultimate day of the fiestas there is a parade through the streets of Alicante called the International Folk Parade. I have seen this parade diminish in participants and quality over the 9 years I have been attending. It goes on for a very long time as there is too much space between each country taking part and it's difficult to appreciate the show. You can see the people waiting for it to start in the photo above. If they stay until the end they will be there for about 3 more hours!
The only reason why people (especially the men who are not usually into these kinds of things) stay until the end is because the last country to parade EACH and every year are the dancing Brazilian ladies!
They usually grab a guy from the spectators and dance with them or just 'wiggle' a bit in front of them... It's funny and a great way to end the parade!
The idea of the parade is that people from other countries (mostly South America) come in their traditional costume and music, and perform dances in the street, maybe handing out some typical delicacies. Not only from abroad but people from other parts of Spain come and show off their identity. However, I suppose it has fallen victim to economic problems affecting budgets on 'culture' events as there were very few people taking part and no 'extras'.
There was a fantastic mechanical eagle (bird lovers you can correct me if it's not an eagle) with a woman sitting on top (no, I don't know why before you ask).
Said eagle was dangling from a crane and I'm sure if I were 6 years old I would be captivated and maybe a little freaked out. Especially when it looks at you!
The most elegant part of the parade for me is always the beautiful dancing horses. I'm not sure if these are Lippizaner horses or another breed but they look splendid in their performance.
I hope that the parade will be better next year so that I can tell you more about it but I was just not inspired this year. Sorry!
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