As busloads of corporate clients spilled into the hospitality tents of the yachting teams competing in the America's Cup, an altogether different scene evolved just a stone's throw from the harbour hosting sailing's most prestigious competition.

The first day of racing, in which Swiss defender Alinghi beat Emirates Team New Zealand, coincided with the traditional Spanish festival celebrating the feast day of St John the Baptist, which marks the summer solstice six months before Christmas.

Tens of thousands of locals and tourists alike gathered to join in the spectacular San Juan fiesta on the Malvarrosa beach, just a short walk from the harbour lined with yachts worth millions of dollars.

The party, with its roots unashamedly set in pagan ritual, saw huge bonfires being lit along the wide expanse of bleached sand, symbolising the triumph of light over dark and offering believers a chance of cleansing body and soul.

People thronged the tiled corniche, lined with palm and date trees and fragrant, exploding bushes of oleander. Groups of youngsters, often wearing nothing more than a bikini or boardshorts, wheeled along liberated supermarket shopping trollies loaded with bags of food, broken up pallettes and furniture, and bottles of spirits and mixers, seeking out friends and a suitable bonfire spot on the beach.

Families decamped en masse, babies dozing in prams rocked to and fro by aging grandmothers sat in deckchairs around foldable tables. Men played dominoes, the women mahjong or cards, all the while supping from home-made sangria transported there in old plastic water bottles.

Music reverberated all around. The ambient sound of didgeridoos competed with Brazilian drummers, trance music wafting up from stages erected along the top of the beach, and portable radios blaring out the best of Spanish Euro-pop.

Hawkers sold charcoal-grilled sweetcorn, hastily-made popcorn and cans of barely cold drinks from ice boxes. Small groups of African women offered hair-braiding and home-made bracelets in front of beachside restaurants packed with diners demolishing huge plates of seafood and yet more sangria.

Women dressed in black and shawls wrapped tightly around their heads, tried their best to sell bushels of rosemary and laurel leaves, traditionally associated here with the concept of purification linked to St John's Eve.

"It's not quite Auckland", commented wide-eyed New Zealander Graham Harris, a retired postman who has been in Valencia for six weeks with his wife following Emirates Team New Zealand in the Louis Vuitton Cup, which pared down the challengers to just one for the America's Cup.

"It's just an amazing scene, and incredible to think it is all a short walk away from the harbour and the glitz surrounding the whole yachting thing. To see whole families out at 11pm is fantastic, all together, older sons even walking along holding the hands of their mothers. It makes you wonder whether we've got it all wrong."

For Anton, a 26-year-old Dunedin native working in north London as a labourer, the America's Cup - this edition being the first since the inaugural one in 1851 to be held in Europe - presented a chance to come to Spain that was not to be missed.

"The fact it coincided with this festival is a real bonus", he said, dressed in a replica Team New Zealand top and wearing a Kiwi flag draped around his middle. "What a party! I'm sure it'll continue for the next week or so", he said before heading off for the traditional midnight swim.

The only fault Harris, as a former postman, could find with Valencia were mealtimes.

"At our hotel we can't get brekkie until 08:30am, lunch until 2pm, and our tea until 10pm. Saying that, after six weeks in Valencia, we have got used to enjoying a little siesta."

Source AFP