Hundreds Enjoy Bend’s Cinco de Mayo Festival

May 5th is Cinco de Mayo, a day in America to celebrate Mexican heritage and pride.

Central Oregonians celebrated Saturday at Bend?s Les Schwab Amphitheater for Amalia’s annual Festival de Banderas.

The all-day festival started at 10 a.m. and was to run until 10 p.m.

The festival has music, dancing and, of course, lots of Mexican food.

The owner of Barcelona’s Gourmet Finishing Sauce, Enrique Riquelme, and his son. Roberto Riquelme, said they started their business in Bend and have since expanded to Seattle and Portland.

The local business’s sauces are now sold at Whole Foods Market.

“We manufacture and distribute cooking sauces.” said Roberto. “Today, we’re featuring in the pizzola, we did a vegetarian pizzola. And then, Whole Foods? marinated rib eye steak, they’re doing marinated steak taquitos that were marinated in our red sauce as well.”

The festival also offered some active activities to work off that Mexican food.

Cascade Indoor Sports set up a soccer area for kids to show off their soccer skills, as well as learn a thing or to about the sport’s fancy footwork.

Don Emerson, director of Cascade Sports, said they “just wanted to get out (to the festival) and enjoy the celebration and be a part of this event.”