RAFA Costa Blanca Items Of Interest Page 1

Spain is well known for its fiesta's and religious festivals The Easter week being one of the largest of them, and the Good Friday Parade one of the biggest and most impressive of them all. Torrevieja is the first town in Spain to invite a non Spainish and mainly non catholic Cofradia to join in the celebrations.
The International Cofradia are unique in as much as as well as being non Spainish and over 80% non catholic. The marjority of the Costaleros , (it took 106 of them to carry the Float or Paso as it is called) were British, but there were also members from Germany,Ireland, France, Scandinavia, Argentina, Ecuador, and even two from Iceland.The Majority of them were in their 60's to 80 plus, and were made up from volunteer's from various Clubs and Associations in the area. The Royal Air Forces Association Costa Blanca Branch were proud to have had four of their members taking part, they were John Knowles, Colin Broad, Peter Riley and Neil Maidnan. We wish them well and thank them for the time and effort they gave willing to the International Costaleros, who together with the other members made a fantastic team effort to be proud of.
The Paso they were carrying was of Jesus praying in the Garden of Olives, it the second largest float in in the parade and weighed 1,600 kilos . The parade started at 7:30 pm from the Church of the Inmaculada and made a circular tour around the town and finished about 11:30pm . The Paso was then returned back to the Semana Santa museum, where the tired but happy Costaleros enjoyed a bar-b-que and a few Drinks.