![Flamenco and Fervor: Inside Spain’s El Rocío Pilgrimage](https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/stsp/to_webp,q_lossy,ret_img/https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/05/08/multimedia/08travel-spain-promo/08travel-spain-wpjl-facebookJumbo.jpg)
“You can’t wear that flamenco dress for the El Rocío pilgrimage, Bonita,” Maria Cárdenas, our Airbnb host, said with a laugh. “You’ll die in the heat.”
She pinched the thick red fabric between her thumb and held it up to my face like a specimen. “You see? Heavy tight dresses like this are made for the festivals at the bullring in Seville city,” she explained. “You need lightweight stretchy polyester for pilgrimages — for riding, walking, dancing, siestas in the grass.”
The El Rocío pilgrimage is a high-octane religious spectacle — a multiday annual fiesta, held in Andalusia, the southernmost region in Spain — of flamenco dresses, caravans and religious fervor that seems to grow ever stronger, despite the ever-waning influence of the Catholic Church.
Participants can spend months in preparation: planning menus, hiring tractors, arranging for caravans. It also requires the selection of a dress that permits the wearer to relieve herself behind a bush while exuding all the elegance of Goya’s Duchess of Alba.