An Afternoon at “La Campechada”

Street dancers on stilts.
Click to see the image larger.

Yes­ter­day we caught a break in the weath­er.  I’m no weath­er­man, but with­out a doubt, 2013 must have been one of the raini­est years in Puer­to Rican his­to­ry.  So nat­u­ral­ly, when my wife and I looked out the win­dow in the morn­ing and we say a pris­tine blue sky, we hit the road.

On my last post, about Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro, I remem­ber say­ing that my next post would be about some exot­ic loca­tion out­side the San Juan Metro­plex.  But this past week­end we had a great event going on in Old San Juan and I thought I might cov­er it so you could con­sid­er it for future years.

I’m talk­ing about “La Campecha­da”, a street fair that has been going on since 2011 to cel­e­brate the life of Puer­to Rico’s most renown artists.  The first year it was ded­i­cat­ed —of course— to 18th cen­tu­ry painter José Campeche, the Island’s first visu­al artist and con­sid­ered by many as the best roco­co artist in the New World.

The 2012 edi­tion of “La Campecha­da” was ded­i­cat­ed to 19th cen­tu­ry painter Fran­cis­co Oller, the only Latin Amer­i­can painter to play a role in the devel­op­ment of impressionism.

And final­ly, this year’s edi­tion was ded­i­cat­ed to our beloved Rafael Tufiño, a mod­ern era painter and print­mak­er who was known to all as “el pin­tor del pueblo” (the peo­ple’s painter) because of the “dai­ly life” sub­jects that always inspired his work.

“La Campecha­da” is a city-wide cul­tur­al event that takes place in streets and squares of Old San Juan and includes the­atri­cal events, con­certs, lit­er­ary work­shops, arti­san fairs, lots of food and “a lit­tle less beer” than oth­er major events like the “San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas” that take place in the same spaces on the third week­end of January.

Artist sell­ing his art on San Sebas­t­ian Street.

For exam­ple, yes­ter­day there was art every­where.  There was an exhib­it at City Hall of Rafael Tufiño’s most pop­u­lar seri­graphs and paint­ings.  There were local artists pos­ing at dif­fer­ent points of San Sebas­t­ian Street so that aspir­ing artists could paint their por­traits.  Oth­er artists were sell­ing their works along many of the city Streets.  And there were exhibits at most muse­ums —most free of charge— to cel­e­brate the occa­sion.  And of course, there was music, food and drinks at all squares through­out the city.

Dancers at Bal­la­ja Mil­i­tary Baracks

“La Campecha­da” is the kind of event where you can spend a day explor­ing the Old City, see the exhibits at your own pace, grab a snack, a beer or even a “piragua” and relax…  A piragua is what the locals call a “snow cone”, cov­ered in thick fruit syrup, and served in a plas­tic cup (in the past they used to be served in a paper cone).  As a dia­bet­ic I have to watch my year­ly quo­ta of piraguas.  But yes­ter­day I enjoyed one cov­ered in rasp­ber­ry syrup.  Yummy!!!

“La Campecha­da” was cre­at­ed by the Puer­to Rico Insti­tute of Cul­ture with the sup­port of the San Juan Muse­um of Art.  For more infor­ma­tion and exact itin­er­aries of future edi­tions call 787–724-0700.

Se you soon…

©2013,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590