I went with Marty and Carlos to Escipulas this weekend for a tour. Escipulas is in the South-East corner of Guatemala and is a pilgrimage site for most of Central America. There is a statue of Christ called “Cristo Negro” (Black Christ) that is said to have miraculous healing powers for people of faith. This is taken very seriously. Though I did not see it, there are people that enter into the church on their knees, make their way up to Christo Negro to pray, and then exit on their sore bloody knees.
The group. Its hard to see in this photo, but there were 52 of us.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtqvDn8hYhU[/youtube]
Año Santo. 250th Anniversary of the church. This main entry door is never completely opened. For this year alone it has been opened completely. Pope Benedict has said that to walk through this door is a very holy act.
We had just been to Escipulas two weeks ago during Semana Santa when my mother was here (had decided last minute to go there instead of Chemuc Shampey because of whether conditions). It was good to go again to see it in a different way. We went to a handful of services. One was in a small chapel that is usually never open to the public, and another was during the main service in an elevated area that is very close to the Cristo Negro.
Escipulas
People outside. This photo doesn´t do justice to the amount of people that are are actually there on a daily basis. It is packed.
I will load more pics of Escipulas once I have them available…
The town that the church is in is completely dependent on the existance of the church. Without the church, I´m pretty sure there´d be no town. Everybody is selling religious paraphanilia along with everything else that usually makes up a Guatlemalan mercado. We were walking around and met this guy:
Master of the fortune telling paraquets
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdZxfNKvq6g[/youtube]start
So the paraquet decided to pick three papelitos of advice for me, out of which I chose the yellow one. I have to admit, I still do not exactly understand the elaborate prophecy that has been fortold. Marty helped me clear it up a bit though and it is something along the lines of the fact that I will soon be recieving news that will not be good. Fortunately, it also said that the news will not be bad either… just news.
So while climbing up the windy stretch of highway on the way home, the bus driver started to slow down and then pull over to the side of the road.
Hmm
Luckily, the bus driver was basically a mechanic too. After about 15 minutes or so, he was able to fix the bus and we continued on. We then drove for about 5 - 10 minutes more and pulled over again. Repeat. Then drove a bit more and then broke down again. After the 3rd breakdown, people decided that we´d better get another bus. We ended up getting many “microbuses” to drive us to the hotel we were eating at for lunch.
Breakdown
Filing into the microbus
Because it was a spur of the moment thing, our microbus driver didn´t have his transit papers. We were then given a “free tour” through Chikimulas to retrieve the papers before going to the hotel.
We then ate lunch and then hung out next to the pool for about 1.5 hours. When the bus arrived, the bus driver was completely covered in grease but said that the bus was ready to go. We then continued back to Guatemala city breakdown-free. Luckily, this had not been at night, that would have been a completely different situation…
