This holiday means more than just no classes....but tons of walking as well. Many Catholics in Costa Rica take a pilgrimage to Cartago for this holiday. They walk to this church in the mountains to see the Virgen, pray, and attend this ongoing service. The walking begins Wednesday and ends Friday for some people. Some people walk from really far places for days to get to Cartago while others take buses to cut down on the walking like my host family haha. People who walk from San Jose (which is a popular spot to walk from) walk for about 6 or 7 hours. My host family and I took it one step further and took a bus to this park and only had to walk for 3 hours! I felt bad for my host dad. He couldn't come because of his heart problem he had before I came. He was in the hospital for over a week and is still recovering.
Once we made it to Cartago it was crazy. There was TONS of people there. Tons. I can't even guess how many. All kinds of people make the pilgrimage: parents, grandparents, babies, children, teens, the handicapped, blind, and poor. It doesn't matter who you are or what your status is, you're most likely going to walk just like anyone else. Except the babies (the real babies, I'm not calling anyone a wimp). Along the way people were selling figurines, fresh fruit, and this nasty honey+brown sugar covered coconut mess. My host mom got some and offered it to me... I took a tiny bit...and hated it.
One of the cool parts of finally reaching the church was seeing all of the people with their umbrellas up. You can kind of see in some of the photos below what I mean. It was also touching to see the people walking on their knees through the church. The signs on the church below read:"Entrada en Piel" and "Entrada en Rodilla", enter on foot, enter on knee. One of my host sisters and I went on foot (she has bad knees and I didn't even know what people were walking on their knees to), my other host sister and host mom went on their knees. In the photos you can see the struggle of the people walking on their knees, one woman fell, and another man was dragged out by the medics because after walking on his knees he could no longer get up. It was intense.
Heredia's not the only place with a surplus of dogs. Cartago even had one in the church!
The man being helped out of the church ^^
Haha this women walked into the photo...notice my face...
Last note: I talked with my host sister today about wanting to run half marathons again. She said there's lots of races in Costa Rica that I could probably do so we'll see what happens! I'm sure I'll die my first one.
Buenas Dias Mis Amigos!
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