Medellin’s flower festival culminates in a parade of flower vendors, the silleteros who once walked in from the mountains.
Small farmers from the mountains outside Medellin parade their “silletos” through the streets, highlight of the August 7th Feria de las Flores. Photo: Albeiro Lopera for Reuters.
For centuries the cool, bright climate of the Colombian Andes has been flower country. The province of Antioquia prides itself on some of the most robust gladiolas, orchids, carnations and roses anywhere, making Colombia’s flower industry, “the second largest in the world, surpassed only by that of the Netherlands.”
Long before this region’s floriculture took the international stage, campesinos (small-scale farmers) from the mountains outside Medellin would bring flowers to town to sell. Since there were few roads in the highlands, and very few people who owned cars, most flower vendors carried their wares on their backs, wedging the blooms into big wooden frames called silletos, and lugging them to the city. The vendors, known as silleteros, unloaded and sold their flowers in certain spots across the city, notably la Placita de Flores in the barrio Buenos Aires.
In 1957, Arturo Uribe Arango of the Medellin tourist board asked the silleteros to parade through town as the climax of Medellin’s Feria de las Flores, an incredible spectacle of floricultural prowess, folk economics, and human strength. This year nearly 500 silleteros marched in the August 7 parade. The event included both traditional silletos and commercially sponsored ones, and this year children carried flowers too.
Silleteros Parade, Medellin, Colombia.Photo: El Colombiano.
The older silletos were indeed shaped like chairs (“sillas” in Spanish) and worn like backpacks, but the more elaborate designs of today are shaped into immense medallions. Some weigh as much as 70 kilos (154 pounds). For lots more about the festival and its history, see El Colombiano’s splendid site (in Spanish, por cierto). Here are some gorgeous photos, courtesy of the Colombian Embassy in Italy. And here’s another good batch of photos.
Put August 7th on your international flower calendar. We hope to meet you in Medellin for next year’s parade.
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