camwyn | (no subject)

There is a town in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, named San Juan de la Vega. They've been there since at least the sixteenth century. I have never known about them before this day, but they have a festival in honor of their town's patron saint that makes my ancestral city of Bari's celebration of the Day They Stole Santa Claus* look pretty tame by comparison.

Then again, anything looks tame next to something in which the words "unique exploding sledgehammer festival" are involved.

Stop by Cracked if you want a look. Because dude. Exploding sledgehammers.

(Also the fifty foot baby toss is kind of amazing but that's a different festival in another country.)

*Bari was one of several towns/cities that laid claim to the bones of the original St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, and eventually wound up getting about half of them thanks to a bunch of sailors who 'furtively translated the bones' in 1087. Every year from May 7th to May 9th there's a festival in which they put the bones on a boat and sail it around the harbor to commemorate the bones arriving safely in town before anyone else could get them. There's parades and such too. So basically it's the celebration of the Day They Stole Santa Claus.