Queens of Mendoza
Quite accidentally we arrived in Mendoza, the heart of Argentina´s wine growing region, just in time for their annual Vendimia (harvest) festival, which made finding a hotel room quite tricky.
Each year 16 girls are elected to represent the different areas of the province of Mendoza. This tradition apparently started when the prettiest girl picking grapes would be crowned Queen of the harvest. Nowadays the 16 chosen girls take part in processions through the streets of Mendoza and after a huge sound and light show in a theatre near to the town the winner of the competition is elected Regina Nacional (national queen).
According to some girls that we spoke to, hardly anyone now wants to enter the competition as winning means having to take a year off college to represent Mendoza. This didn't stop this years winner, Andrea Regina aged 18, (strangely her surname actually means queen in Spanish!) starting to cry and saying that she had dreamed of this moment ever since she was a child.
We quite enjoyed watching the beauty queen parade. The streets were crowded with Mendozians of all ages and booklets were handed out with pictures of the 16 competitors. Each region had a different float to transport its beauty queen on, one float was complete with a live cow in a pen looking on while four dead cows were grilled and steak sandwiches handed out to the crowd.
We managed to get tickets for the grand finale of the competition, which is known as the Acto Central. The theatre was packed with about 20 thousand people with more sitting on the hills above. The first sign we had that it wasn't going to be so fun was when we realized that they didn't sell wine, strange for a party celebrating the grape harvest, and that everybody else had brought a picnic.
The actual show had the theme of Tierra Magica (magic land) and was apparently something to do with nature and grapes acted out in dance and mime by hundreds of people. It was a bit like an Olympics opening ceremony crossed with a school play. Mainly my attention was caught by the painful spectacle of a truck dressed up as a beetle that got stuck on stage for ages, interrupting other scenes, before finally managing to reverse off.
After the show the Queen was elected, which unfortunately involved slowly reading out all the votes that had been cast over a one hour period. Eventually the whole spectacle wound up with some pretty good fireworks and everyone in the stadium joining in enthusiastically to sing their local song, Mendoza, Mendoza, Mendoza...
Each year 16 girls are elected to represent the different areas of the province of Mendoza. This tradition apparently started when the prettiest girl picking grapes would be crowned Queen of the harvest. Nowadays the 16 chosen girls take part in processions through the streets of Mendoza and after a huge sound and light show in a theatre near to the town the winner of the competition is elected Regina Nacional (national queen).
According to some girls that we spoke to, hardly anyone now wants to enter the competition as winning means having to take a year off college to represent Mendoza. This didn't stop this years winner, Andrea Regina aged 18, (strangely her surname actually means queen in Spanish!) starting to cry and saying that she had dreamed of this moment ever since she was a child.
We quite enjoyed watching the beauty queen parade. The streets were crowded with Mendozians of all ages and booklets were handed out with pictures of the 16 competitors. Each region had a different float to transport its beauty queen on, one float was complete with a live cow in a pen looking on while four dead cows were grilled and steak sandwiches handed out to the crowd.
We managed to get tickets for the grand finale of the competition, which is known as the Acto Central. The theatre was packed with about 20 thousand people with more sitting on the hills above. The first sign we had that it wasn't going to be so fun was when we realized that they didn't sell wine, strange for a party celebrating the grape harvest, and that everybody else had brought a picnic.
The actual show had the theme of Tierra Magica (magic land) and was apparently something to do with nature and grapes acted out in dance and mime by hundreds of people. It was a bit like an Olympics opening ceremony crossed with a school play. Mainly my attention was caught by the painful spectacle of a truck dressed up as a beetle that got stuck on stage for ages, interrupting other scenes, before finally managing to reverse off.
After the show the Queen was elected, which unfortunately involved slowly reading out all the votes that had been cast over a one hour period. Eventually the whole spectacle wound up with some pretty good fireworks and everyone in the stadium joining in enthusiastically to sing their local song, Mendoza, Mendoza, Mendoza...
posted by Natalie Dillon at 9:45 AM
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