In Santiago de Cuba the Caribbean reigns with its songs and colors

The month of July brings the Fire Festival to the city of Santiago de Cub every year.a, event considered the most important of popular culture in the area, and also the one that turns the city of more than 500 years into the true Capital of the Caribbean.

The Serpent Parade, a huge parade that crosses the Historic Center of the city and one of the most important and colorful popular activities, brings together the carrying groups in a huge compact, colorful and multiethnic mass, where everyone speaks the common language of showing the best of the art of every town in the area.

This is where each delegation brings the best of its culture and exhibits it in artistic evolutions made to seduce a city eager to see the costumes, customs, and above all the dances and songs of each nation.

Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina... are some of the most anticipated delegations each year, perhaps because they are very familiar or because their cultures are so similar to Cubans.

Also expected are the evolutions of the groups carrying the patio, the tombs inherited from French and Haitian culture, also from the best of the traditions of the intangible heritage of the city that hosts the Fire Festival.

This year, the 39th edition ofCaribbean Festival is dedicated for the first time to Uruguay, a nation that since 2011 has strengthened cultural ties with Cuba through this event and that on this occasion will show through tango and candombe, containing Afro-descendant components, and that are closely related to the area. and the largest nation of the Antilles.

Especially tango, through the Uruguayan delegation and its 150 members, is the most anticipated this year at the Fiesta del Fuego, a genre that, although far from Cuban culture, has followers and sympathizers here.

Although the Caribbean Festival began last July 3, the Snake Parade is the first big activity that the people expect, who gather along Aguilera Street to see the colorful human mass, moving between the Dolores and Céspedes parks. .

In its 39th edition, the Fire Festival has brought together more than 30 nations and 500 participants, figures that undoubtedly make the festival an international event, however, it is not one of the events that has had the greatest drawing power.

In addition to this Parade of the Serpent, very popular are the burning of the devil and Parade of Fire, the show of Tribute to the Slave Rebellion, in the Loma del Cimarrón monument complex, in El Cobre, the Ode to Yemayá, on the beach of Juan González, and the delivery of the Mpaka on the last day, which will be given to Belize, to whom the 2020 event will be dedicated.