The Vanilla Festival is held in early summer every year in Papantla, Veracruz. The origins of the festival pre-date the Spanish conquest. Its timing is now tied to the Catholic celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), sixty days after Easter.
Papantla is the heart of Mexico's vanilla-growing region. Vanilla, surely one of the world's best known flavors, if only on account of its ubiquitous use in ice-cream, comes from the seed pods of an orchid. The pods are about 20 centimeters in length and green when harvested. After careful and laborious drying and "sweating", these pods turn black. This caused Nahuatl-speaking Indians to name the plant tlilxóchitl (= black flower).
The orchid involved, Vanilla planifolia, grows as a thin vine twisting its way around host trees. The plant has delicate greenish-white flowers in Spring. If these flowers are not pollinated, they fall off the vine within hours. Flowers that are successfully pollinated (usually by bees) turn into seed pods, which take up to six months to ripen. For commercial cultivation, hand pollination of each individual flower is essential. Until about fifty years ago, traditional growers of vanilla in the Papantla region relied on young maidens using small sticks or feathers to perform this task. Like so many other traditions, this one has long since died out!
The Vanilla Festival invariably includes the Dance of the Voladores (Flyers). This is definitely one of the more extreme dances you will ever witness, something like multiple bungee jumping and maypole dancing being performed simultaneously!
The Vanilla Festival is a great place to see other folkloric dances, such as the quetzales and the dance of Los Negritos, in their original setting as well. Needless to say, besides the dancing, the festival has all the usual fun, stalls, and souvenirs - and even lots of genuine vanilla extract and vanilla pods, some of the latter woven into handicrafts...
Papantla is very close to the fabulous archaeological site of El Tajín, with its famous pyramid of the niches and other wonders. Hotels are available in Papantla, Poza Rica (an oil town) and in Tecolutla, a small, relaxed beach town on the Gulf.
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