Feria de Juticalpa

December 8th, the Immaculate Conception, is a big day for Juticalpa as it begins Juticalpa's fair. Best part is, the beginning of the fair or feria and the Immaculate Conception, warrant a day off school yesssssssss.

I love days off school, especially ones in the middle of the week that are just so random that you have to enjoy it.

Slept in. Slow life breakfast. Slow life reading, journaling, and chilling around the house.

Then we got ready and walked downtown to see all the festivities. We went to the park in the downtown area where we met up with some other girls and went into see the Cathedral. It was beautiful! All decorated for Christmas and the statue of Mary was candlelit, it was mesmerizing. The nativity scene was of course way over the top and more like a village than your typical stable scene, it was awesome.

Cathedral

Nativity Scene

The statue of Mary

Then we headed back out into the park to explore. The kids from the orphanage were on an outing for the parades so we found them and played in some trees for awhile. It was so lovely to see them out and about enjoying things around town.

Luis and I....such a cutie.

The whole park was full of people selling all kinds of goodies. There were food stands everywhere. Luckily Laura loves to splitsies so we shared a gringa (yes, it's really called a gringa and sooooo rico) and Mexican style tacos. Also there was tons of market-style shopping stands filled with shoes, clothes, jewelry, stuffed animals, Honduran trinkets, and more. I love that kind of shopping, so it was fun to walk around and explore surroundings.

All the volunteers.

This picture is legit.

Then the parade began. It was a shorter parade, but nevertheless pretty neat-o. There was the display of Miss Juticalpa and several floats presenting the statue of the Virgin Mary and then there was the parade of the horses. Ahhhh do I love horses.

Pretty amazing day for a parade, yeah?

Mary float

After the parade, we met up with another friend Mario and proceeded to do some more shopping around town which I had been DYING to do. I proceeded to buy some more Christmas presents and some treats for myself.

That night, we met back up to celebrate Deirdre's birthday. The feria has several parts, one of which is a legit fair, much like in the US. Food tents, beer tents, rodeo, live music, dancing, and cows. Pretty great. So we celebrate with some delicious Honduran style meat kebabs and tortillas, some cervezas, and just hanging out and celebrating. As the night progressed a band started playing and they played some great tunes, so of course we started dancing. Now, its not very often that you see gringas in Honduras and as a result we were immediately pulled on stage to dance, waaaah waaaah. But it was a great time. I am still in shock that Juti had a real live, genuine fair. Que rico.

Live band.