It’s the dawn, the beams of sunlight tint the horizon with a deep orange color while the fog and the clouds hover low, hiding the view of the city. Santa Elena district, laborious and given to staying up late, gets up to accomplish its annual rendezvous with the Flower Fair.

The day of the parade has come. The flower farmers give a final touch to their flower chairs –or silletas- which were assembled on the eve. With great care they push the most delicate flowers into the framework one by one, to ensure their freshness and appeal until the end of the afternoon when the Silleteros Parade will be over.

An atmosphere of fidgety good-bye and being ready to take part in an important ceremony prevails. There’s no other topic of conversation while they dress up and put on their finery. It’s a propitious day to wear something for the first time. The splendorous morning turns up with its intense blue. Memories of former parades come up and the desire grows to win one of the prizes the judges will award the winning silletas. In every single house in Santa Elena there’s a single motto frolicking in the heart and lips of the paraders: “I’ll get it this time.” There’s even time to pose for a picture to fix the memory in the family album.

It’s the time to go now, and the most authentic parade emerges from every corner of the district. There’s clapping and one hears cheers; excitement grows as paraders say good-bye to those who have to stay home watching the event on television and seeing their close relatives go by.

In the leave-taking ritual, every home shows itself before the others in the privacy of the community space, in the joy of its own parade, without judges or crowds. On their backs, the silletas –expression of identity- swing rhythmically.

Santa Elena becomes a pack of leave-takings, a collection of moving fragrances and colors, a cluster of hugs that stay attached to the skin. There thesilleteros go with their fast-beating hearts to turn up to the annual appointment with a city and a country that bow at them in fascination. The entire event is an affirmation of life and hope which are displayed in a flood of moving silletas.

Slowly, the silleteros reach the spots on the main road where some dump trucks, trucks and chiva buses will pick up the precious and fragile load. Some neighbors and relatives gather at the site and they hug and congratulate in the middle of a hullabaloo. The loading of the chairs into the trucks is still a delicate operation causing worry. Their accommodation and the care during transport are key factors for the impression they will make on the public and jury.

In this scenery, in the open, the buses de escalera or chivas appear with their load of flower chairs either firmly tied on their roofs or comfortably attached to the supports in their interior. This combination of the colorful bus body structure and the silletas enhances the internal and external colors of these chivas, offering a striking view. Very few times we can see this multicolor combination of popular expressions –chivas and silletas- turning back the hands of the social memory clock, now linked by the spirit of a festivity that, in passing, pays tribute to the history of transportation.

The monumental silletas are splendid works requiring a big vehicle to be transported. This generates another show: the caravan of dump trucks coming down the snaking road with the city seen on the background, framed with mountains. It gives the impression of a floral avalanche over the city.