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"Iemanja"

Festival of the Goddess of the Sea

On February 2, each year, the Festival of Iemanja is celebrated in both Montevideo and Punta Del Este.

On this day, thousands of people gather at different beaches to honor Iemanja and receive her blessing and protection. Not only devotees will attend, every year more and more curious people will stop by to watch the festivity. They start arriving in the afternoon and they will leave late at night, around 3 in the morning.

Celebrants are mostly dressed in white or light blue and they will make different kinds of offers to the goddess. The most common offers are flowers, watermelons and candles. However, some people go a little further by making sand sculptures or small boats that will carry a sculpture of her and will be full of fruits and foods of different kinds, money, candles and whatever you can imagine.