A Cleansing Experience

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Recently Steve and I made our way to the nearby town of Cartago in hopes of catching a bus to the top of Volcan Irazu, which is the tallest active volcano in Costa Rica. Everything was going great. We made it to Cartago early with a map of the town in hand and found the bus stop for Irazu or at least what the map said was the bus to Irazu. Turns out the map was wrong and we missed the bus but on the upside the top of the volcano was cloudy that day and we probably wouldn´t have seen much anyway. So we decided to head to the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Our Lady of the Angels Basilica). The Basilica was built in 1639, as the story goes, at the location where a young girl found a statue of the Virgen Mary holding the infant Jesus. Its an interesting story if you would like to look it up. At the Basilica there is a fresh water spring that is said to be holy and have healing powers. People from all over the country and even the world will bring with them some sort of token or charm that represents the thing that they want healed. People wash themselves and drink from the spring which is under the rock on which the statue was found. Before I left the Basilica I felt that I had to drink the water from the spring. I wasn´t sure if it would be safe for me to drink without any type of filtration but I decided to do it anyway. We´ll just say that it ended up being a "cleansing" experience, one that i´ll never forget.

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Photos

La Negrita
Also known as the Black Madonna