More than thirty people took part in a staging that combined the speaker’s words with music, dance, poetry and popular culture at the start of the festivities in honour of Nuestra Señora de La Peña
Fuerteventura marked the official start of the Fiestas en Honor a Nuestra Señora de La Peña this Thursday with an opening speech by Antonio Ravelo Umpiérrez, who turned the stage in Vega de Río Palmas into a great meeting point for memory, music, tradition and popular culture.
The Vega de Río Palmas resident was joined throughout the speech by more than thirty people, in a moving, participatory event that was carefully crafted down to the last detail. It was a hugely dynamic and lively production, in which the speaker’s words were woven together with musical performances, dance, poetry, images of past and present, re-enactments and a wide range of examples of Fuerteventura’s culture.
The president of Cabildo de Fuerteventura, Lola García, said during the event that “La Peña is a moment for coming together, for people from every corner of the island to make their way to Vega de Río Palmas, drawn by our promises, our memories and our feelings”. García also noted that “each person has their own personal promise, but we can also understand it as a collective one: the promise not to forget who we are, and to look after our traditions and our heritage”.
“And when it comes to keeping our traditions alive, this year’s speaker, Antonio Ravelo, knows a great deal about that. He is from here, from Vega de Río Palmas, and has spent his whole life closely linked to music, folklore, culture and, above all, to the people of our island,” she added.
The mayor of Betancuria, Enrique Cerdeña, highlighted the importance of “welcoming with hospitality and joy all those who make their way to this corner of the municipality over these days to share devotion, spirituality and enjoyment during the patron saint festivities”. He also noted that “Antonio Ravelo has a deep knowledge of our patron saint festivities, having experienced them closely since childhood, as he was born and raised in Vega de Río Palmas. It is a source of pride for all the residents of the municipality that he has been chosen to announce the start of these festivities”.
The event was also attended by the Councillor for Culture, Rayco León, councillors from both the governing group and the opposition on the Cabildo, mayors and municipal representatives, members of parliament, as well as local residents and civil, military and religious authorities.
Antonio Ravelo, a native of Vega de Río Palmas who has been linked to music, folklore and Fuerteventura’s cultural life since he was young, presented his speech as a tribute to the people of this village and to those who, generation after generation, have kept its traditions alive. Through a journey of personal and collective memories, the large crowd gathered in the square was able to get to know the history of Vega de Río Palmas more closely through the experiences of its residents. It was a speech in which Ravelo’s bond with his village, his closeness to its people and his deep knowledge of a history that forms part of his own life were especially evident.
It was, in short, a tribute to Vega de Río Palmas itself, the heart of the Fiestas de La Peña, but also to the history and present of Fuerteventura, told through the people, customs and traditions that have shaped the island’s identity.
Reviving the trades and memory of the Vega
One of the central threads of the speech was the memory of the traditional trades linked to farming, livestock and the use of the valley’s resources. Ravelo looked back at the importance of wells and waterwheels, the building of mills, traditional carpentry, basket-weaving with pírgano reed and cane, and openwork embroidery, putting names and faces to the people who devoted their lives to preserving, nurturing and passing on this knowledge. Names such as Antonio Hernández, Simón Perera, Antonio and Anselmo Ravelo ‘Tirino’, Agustín Umpiérrez, Josefa ‘Fefita’ Navarro, Peña Unpiérrez and Socorro Robayna emerged throughout this journey, alongside many other names and stories that form part of the memory of Vega de Río Palmas and Fuerteventura.
The journey through traditional trades gave way to music and the festive traditions of La Vega, tracing the different ways in which music has accompanied village life over the years, from taifa dances, parrandas and popular music to the verbenas (open-air dance parties) that have brought entire generations together. This was a section closely tied to the speaker’s own experience as a musician and to the many fellow travellers with whom he has shared stages and moments over the years. This all came to life on stage, with talented musicians performing folías and other traditional pieces of local music, accompanied by dancing that recreated those festive nights forming part of Fuerteventura’s collective memory. There were also rancheras, of the kind that used to open the verbenas of years gone by, which had the crowd in the square dancing.
Among the most participatory moments of the night was the tribute to ‘Los Amigos del Jueves’, a group of neighbours and friends formed around the Rondalla Virgen de la Peña, who have kept one of the most distinctive traditions of these festivities alive for years. Its members took to the stage alongside the speaker to share the final stretch of the event through music and dance. And just when the speech seemed to have come to an end, a brass band burst unexpectedly into the square to put the finishing festive touch on the night, drawing the crowd into the celebration and officially marking the start of the Fiestas de La Peña 2026.
