This year, the Church is making a HUGE deal out of the pilgrimage because it's the 375th anniversary of the appearance (mabye there's a better word?) of the stone.
This is the Basilica that houses La Negrita. You can see all the people. I can't even describe it to you. Suffice it to say that if you don't like large crowds and you enjoy personal space - this is not the place for you. I've never felt more American than when I was being jossled by tons of people on their way to visit Mary and my primary thought was, "Please back up and give me some space." Tho I was surprised to see that the people were waiting in orderly lines to enter the Church. So
not a Latino ideal...
This pic shows the prevalence of the Virgin and what the little shrine thing that houses the rock looks like. I mean, this woman has a drawstring sports bag with an image of the Virgin! Mayra, of course, loved it.
We had finally arrived in Cartago. Tho we still had probably another mile of walking. If you look in the distance, you can see the sea of people. The streets were crowded. The town was taken over by these pilgrims.
Looking back down the hill of where we'd walked. You can see the stream of people behind us, all the way into the mountains back there. Yes, we climbed that mountain :)
This year, the Church is making a HUGE deal out of the pilgrimage because it's the 375th anniversary of the appearance (mabye there's a better word?) of the stone.
This is the Basilica that houses La Negrita. You can see all the people. I can't even describe it to you. Suffice it to say that if you don't like large crowds and you enjoy personal space - this is not the place for you. I've never felt more American than when I was being jossled by tons of people on their way to visit Mary and my primary thought was, "Please back up and give me some space." Tho I was surprised to see that the people were waiting in orderly lines to enter the Church. So not a Latino ideal...
This pic shows the prevalence of the Virgin and what the little shrine thing that houses the rock looks like. I mean, this woman has a drawstring sports bag with an image of the Virgin! Mayra, of course, loved it.
We had finally arrived in Cartago. Tho we still had probably another mile of walking. If you look in the distance, you can see the sea of people. The streets were crowded. The town was taken over by these pilgrims.
Looking back down the hill of where we'd walked. You can see the stream of people behind us, all the way into the mountains back there. Yes, we climbed that mountain :)
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