Today is Good Friday (“Viernes Santo” in Spanish) in the Christian religion, which commemorates the day on which Jesus was crucified on the cross. Many Catholic churches in town had small parades where a statue of Jesus on the cross was taken around the neighborhood.  Iglesia La Merced is one such church, about a block from our condo, so we went to watch and document.

The crowd was small, maybe around 50 or so marchers.  At first we were surprised at the small turnout, but then realized that each of the 50+ churches in town was doing the same thing, so the participants were scattered.  The weather was threatening rain, which probably also reduced the participation, though we never got more than a light drizzle until everyone was over.

Several homes along the parade route put out small altars in celebration of Easter.  The priests leading the march stopped at each one, made a small speech and then blessed them, before moving on.

There was to be another parade in the evening.  We went back to watch that also, but it was running late and the rain was starting to really come down, so we quick-stepped the block back home to avoid the coming deluge.  No sooner did we reach our front door than the sky opened, and it poured for the next several hours.

[PS: The next day the river was swollen and running fast, which was a nice relief from the sparse rain and low river of the past few months.]