This fiesta takes place in Puerto de la Aldea, which is in San Nicolás del Torentino, between 7 and 11 September every year. In English, it is “Festival of the Lagoon”. The lagoon was created when the sea waves merged with the fresh water streams from Gran Canaria’s central mountains. The Fiesta del Charco is one of the oldest Gran Canarian festivals and probably dates back to pre-Hispanic times.
Photo By Ainvar12
This festival is a lot of fun and you can see the villagers wade into the lagoon fully dressed, trying to catch as many fish as possible with their bare hands and drenching one another! There are lots of grey mullets in the lagoon which are left alone to grow until the fiesta time. You can see stick fighting competitions and wrestling matches – nothing too violent and all in the name of fun! There is also a lot of food and beer, as with most Canarian fiestas!
Photo By Atapress
To get to Puerto de la Aldea, you need to take the number 38 bus from Mogan. The bus timetable is rather restricted on bank holidays though but there is a bus leaving at 7am and one coming back at 5.30pm. Alternatively, you could take a taxi on the way there which is about 40 euros. If there are a few of you, this works out reasonable enough. If there are loads of you, you can get a 7 seater taxi and it works out cheaper than the bus! You need to phone +34 620866244 to book the big taxi. They speak English (well, sort of!)
Many of Gran Canaria’s festivals are very colourful, but this is definitely one of the best ones. Don’t miss Fiesta del Charco 2007 or, if you have to, don’t miss Fiesta del Charco 2008!
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