Black Christ festival

October 21, 2010

Sunny morning in portobelo. The music never stopped last night. The
fireworks are going off already. Today is the black Christ festival.
People have dressed up in purple velvet robes and walked or crawled to
get to the church of the black Christ. There are like 20,000 people in
this normally sleepy port town of Christopher Columbus and air Francis
drake fame.

I cleaned out all the cubbies in the sailboat and threw out and gave
away anything that hadn't been used that was not survival gear.

Then headed to captain jacks. The town is simply crawling with people.
Iran literally crawling on their hands and knees following statues.
There's self flagellation involved but I didn't see anything
serious. We ate cocnut de leche candies and I met a local who
ordered me a sandwich with pepperoni and mozzerella. It was delicious.
I wandered into the church and made my way up to the black Christ
statue and back out among the throngs in tact. A kid gave us candle
for the parade. Now I have retreated to the little oasis of americana
at the hostel to await the parade of the black Christ.

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