The Mejorana Festival

The Festival Nacional de la Mejorana was founded in 1949 by a Guararé musician who wanted the country's folk traditions gathered in one place, and it has run every September since, which makes it the oldest and largest folk festival in Panama. Groups come from every province to compete in tamborito, cumbia, décima singing and mejorana playing, there are parades of decorated oxcarts, hundreds of women in full pollera, and a competition for the best. It runs for about five days around the twenty-fourth of September, the town's patron day, and it is a genuinely national event rather than a regional one.

What you actually see

• The competitions - folk groups from every province in dance and music.
• The oxcart parade - decorated carts through the town.
• Polleras in numbers - hundreds of them, competing and worn.
• Décima singing - improvised verse contests in the fixed form.

When to go

Around the twenty-fourth of September for about five days. Accommodation in Guararé is very limited; most visitors stay in Las Tablas or Chitré and drive in. Events run from afternoon into the night.

Honest expectations

Guararé is a small town and has almost no accommodation, so this means staying elsewhere and driving. It is hot, crowded and runs late. The competitions are long and in Spanish with no interpretation. Programmes are published locally and shift.

Nearby

Las Tablas is ten minutes; Chitré is twenty minutes north.