Stella and I were feeling ambitious so we got up early and went to mass at the little iglesia Parroquia San Juan Bautista. They still use kneelers and bells at the consecration and the priest gave a VERY long homily about the resurrection of Lazarus, but it was a very interesting experience! The sign of peace was a truly involved process with everyone going to shake hands with everyone else in the church. Old people kept coming up to us and putting their hands on our shoulders, we must have looked like we needed the love! Religion is very important in Nicaragua and most people are Roman Catholic. The Church has a lot of political influence here, and, even though there is no official religion in the country, the separation of church and state has not entirely occurred.
There is a statue of Christ, El Cristo de la Misericordia, at the summit off of the beach in San Juan. It is a point of pride here and it’s the second largest statue of Christ in this hemisphere after one in Brazil (or something like that.) I decided to climb to the top today to see the view. I get up there and the gate is locked. There is a sign that says foreigners have to pay 20 cordoba ($1) to enter, but there is no guard on duty. I thought for a minute I was going to have to break in to see a statue of Jesus, which didn’t feel right, or climb all the way back down without accomplishing my goal, which didn’t feel right either. I had pretty much decided to chance it and scale the gate when a woman noticed me and came over to unlock it. Good thing because after I paid and walked in I noticed there were two large pit bulls chained just inside. Luckily the view from the top was beautiful!
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