Every year in January, in our little town of Bucerias there is a festival celebrating Our Lady of Peace (La Virgen de la Paz) who is the patron of our local Catholic church. The fiesta lasts for ten days during which the streets fill up with vendors of everything under the sun as well as scores of carnival rides. 
On the last day of the festival, the festivities begin with the blessing of the boats. Bucerias and the town just north of us, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle are both fishing villages. At around noon the boats congregate off shore and one by one they gun their motors and race at top speed for the beach. Just as they hit the sand everyone hops out of the boat and as a team they try to haul the boat up onto the beach as far as they can.
The beach is crowded with spectators milling around and trying to stay out of the path of the boats that are barreling up the beach. The young lady in the picture stands near the place where the next boat will be coming in and bangs the drum to move spectators out of the area. Behind her you can see the young girls who are dressed for the parade and who will accompany the "Virgen" to the church. Another young girl is chosen to play the Virgen. She arrives on the very last boat.
After the boats have been blessed, a procession is formed to travel up the square one block to the church. Everyone in the procession is dressed in traditional costumes. Men, women and children on horseback accompany the marchers. Upon arrival at the church the procession enters the church and mass is celebrated.
In the evening the festival culminates with a firework display that is unlike anything I've ever experienced. In front of the church they build what they call: "El castillo" (the castle). It is a three story tall framework of bamboo strips tied together around a central pole so the whole structure can be rotated. 
The structure is loaded with fireworks which can be set off in groups. Each group is set into a wheel like structure that can rotate independently, so there will be a number of these structures burning and rotating wildly throwing sparks out over the crowds of spectators crowded into the church square. After one side has been set off they rotate the whole tower to bring a new side of the structure facing the crowd and repeat the process again. While all of this is going on a man carrying a wooden frame made up to look like a bull and which is covered with flaming and exploding fireworks, runs through the crown scaring everyone half to death. Often if you try to run away from him he will turn and run after you.
The children love to play a game of "chicken" where they each get a pizza box or piece of cardboard and holding it over their heads, try to see who can get closest to the tower as it is raining down sparks. Of course there is no crowd control, no roped off areas and chaos reigns supreme. After all sides of the tower have been ignited, there comes the grand finale. There is a circular wheel on top of the tower and that is set off last. At first it is relatively benign, with fireworks outlining a dove of peace that slowly rotates. 
Then another set of fireworks ignite which cause the wheel to rotate faster and faster until the whole wheel literally takes off and shoots up into the sky with massive explosions. This is followed by a series of normal fireworks, but they seem rather tame after the experience of the castillo.
The next day the town begins to clean up. The amusement ride people disassemble the rides and pack them up for the next festival in another town. Bucerias gets back to normal and residents of the downtown breathe a sigh of relief as life gets back to it's usual slow pace.
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