KEY POINTS:
She was dressed in a pink bikini. Not built for speed but she wound up to full tilt and launched herself into a jump over the bonfire.
The loose sand of Valencia's beach had slowed her already less-than-Carl-Lewis sprint and she landed in the embers of the fire, a shower of sparks announcing that she had not quite managed to clear the flames. Laughing, she rubbed sand on the burns and she and her friends ran to the sea and the cool water.
Not much disturbs the high spirits on the night of the bonfires of St John. An intriguing mix of pagan festival - the summer solstice - and religion (the birth of San Juan, St John), the festival takes place while our America's Cup sailors are in bed waiting for the next clash with Alinghi.
They don't know what they are missing. This is a festival with a capital F. About 250,000 Valencianos converge at night on Valencia's massive Mediterranean beachfront, armed with wood, old furniture, matches, drink and a determination to have a good time.
As we finish our dinner in a beachfront restaurant, we are intrigued by the small armies of people marching through the restaurant carrying chopped-up furniture and firewood.
They build their bonfires - those who jump three times over the fires are supposedly cleansed from disease and sin - and settle in for a night of fireworks, dancing, communing, drinking and just having a hell of a good time.
The beach is covered with people and fires as far as the eye can see. I once walked down the beachfront at Madras in India, to see the people that lived there in a vast shanty town. This dwarfed that.
There are children. There are grandparents. There are women dressed in posh frocks, high heels and handbags. Many people are in swimming gear. Most are gathered around their fires, built in holes they have dug in the sand; the smoke so dense you can cut it with the blade of your hand.
Some senior citizens sit in aluminium chairs around their fire, no doubt discussing the bonfires of St John in their youth.
Next to them, two girls are determinedly topless, immodest in modest Spain. And over there, two lovers sit on the beach promenade wall, face to face, their arms around each other.
At two minutes to midnight, the migration begins. The festival apparently dictates that one must go to the sea to cleanse oneself.
The sight of most of the 250,000 walking to the water's edge, where they paddle and squeal as the waves break, is sobering.
It is like the march of the lemmings, striking in its sheer scale.
Straight out from where we stand is the starting line of the America's Cup.
We think of that as tradition. Try this ancient festival and its link with our pagan past.
The America's Cup is about money and politics - oh, and sport. The festival is about man's beginnings and an ancient ritual of thanks for the coming bounty.
But it is also about civilisation. A quarter of a million people on a beach, lighting fires and yahooing it up. There are no fights. There is drink but no drunkenness.
The closest we in New Zealand could ever get to this is Guy Fawkes. But the bonfires of St John are all about a sense of community and the ability to function together as a people.
Guy Fawkes is all about blowing up someone's letterbox and a big night for the burns unit.
The old countries still have something to teach us.
And I'm not talking America's Cup.
