'tis the season...

...to burn things down!!! 

Well, at least it is in Alicante! Yup, it's time for the HOGUERAS DE SAN JUAN! When the city goes nuts (more than usual), streets get cut off, and people set up huge sculptures made of paper, wood, cardboard... anything that burns really. And then BURN it all down! :p

Monday afternoon I wandered down to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento to see if they had started with the "Plantà", a.k.a. setting up the "official" hoguera (the one representing the city, which doesn't compete with the others)... and boy had they! 

The main core of the hoguera was up, and they were using cranes to hoist up and set in place various pieces. Not a simple matter! 

And strewn all around the plaza were other bits and pieces that will be included somehow... either as part of the core sculpture or standing a bit apart. Was quite fun to watch them working on it... care to take a look? ;o)

A couple of guys were working on the children's "official" hoguera, the base of which looks like a bed transforming into a sailboat:

The main structure is damn impressive, although I can tell it's smaller than other years. There's no way this holiday would be cancelled, but budget cuts (damn crisis!) will be visible in all the monuments this year...

I wonder where they'll put this face... perhaps in the centre of that ring of petals up top?

I stayed for a while, hoping to see the whole process of inserting one of those petals into place...

When they started I was sure it would be the missing petal from up top... but as they (slowly!) got it into position, I discovered it was part of a second row that will be between the others!

trying to push it into place

Unfortunately they seemed to be having some problems getting properly into place, so once the guys from up top had "landed" and started discussing the issue, I left. Now I need to find a moment to head downtown and see what the final result is! ;o)

Oh, and here's a little video I put together of all this: