Holy Week in Lahiguera

Description

Lahiguera preserves a distinctive Holy Week tradition known as the "carrera de los santos" ("race of the saints"), which takes place on Good Friday at the site known as "El Cerrillo", when the Virgen de los Dolores and San Juan Bautista meet Jesús de Nazareno, whose processional platforms are carried "at a run" by young men so that the images can be brought together more quickly. On Easter Sunday, known to the townspeople as "domingo de amor" ("Sunday of love"), the bearers repeat the race, this time with the image of the Risen Christ, holding the platform with their hands rather than on their shoulders. Alongside this distinctive way of carrying the images in procession, the "madrugá" proclamations on Good Friday — "La confrontación del ángel" (The Confrontation with the Angel), "La sentencia de azotes" (The Sentence of Flogging) and "La sentencia a muerte" (The Death Sentence) — give this Holy Week its own personal stamp, further enriched by a culinary tradition that has adapted traditional dishes to observe the required fasting; this is the case of the "Holy Week flamenquín", a fish roll filled with prawns, cooked in the same way as the meat-filled version.