Salvador Dalí as a ninot near the bullfighting arena

Today is the biggest day of Las Fallas celebrations, and it’s been raining hard. Burning everything down under these conditions will be challenging, but the folks in charge of the conflagration are bound to have plans in place.

I’ll have more pictures for you in the next few days, but in the meantime, I’ve come up with an organizational framework to help me corral all the elements of Las Fallas. We’ve got sounds, smells, sights, lights, and heat. Ready?

The Sounds:

Las Fallas includes sounds of many kinds. There’s the despertá (have a quick listen), the himno that I shared earlier, plus a song that we keep hearing, but don’t know the name of. El Guapo can whistle it, so we need to corner somebody and inquire. There’s the mascletá that happens every day at 2 pm (which you can listen…