That’s it, it is over now. The Aplec del Caragol has finished. The aplec is a big feast with ‘eating snails’ as a central theme. But in fact it is a lot more. It is about eating, drinking, culture, meeting old friends, music, …
On the applec groups of people (collas) spent one weekend together on the festival terrain. There are about 120 collas, with each 50–100 members. Members pay an amount of money, for which they can eat and drink during the whole weekend. Every colla has it’s own space on the terrain, provided with a small bar, tables and chairs, BBQ’s and usually also (live) music. Every member wears the shirt and the scarf of his colla.
Some numbers: besides the 12.000 members of the collas, another 200.000 people have visited the aplec. In all, 12 tons of snails have been consumed!!!
The family of MJ is a member of colla ‘Picarols’ and I was lucky enough to be able to join their colla. Also to my luck, this colla wears white shirts with a blue print as opposed to others which wear white shirts with pink dots, purple shirts with green print…
It was a great pleasure to pass all the collas and watch how every colla has it’s own way of passing the weekend. Another thing which I like a lot, is that it is an activity for everybody. Sometimes three generations of one family are present on one colla.
There is only one backdraw: I think that if your not within a colla, it might not be as much fun. But maybe the 200.000 visiters think different about it… I enjoyed it a lot at least.
