Chimayo pilgrimage

Yesterday, the Preservation and Heritage Tourism class in which I am enrolled visited Chimayo, where annual Easter pilgrimages by the devout bring thousands to the Santuario de Chimayo, come rain or shine. It was snowing on the High Road to Taos, along which pilgrims by the hundreds were walking on the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Part of the goal of the visit was to meet some of the people who want to help the economy of the little unincorporated town straddling Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties by encouraging an influx of year-round visitors and more permanent members of the "creative classes" (a la Richard Florida & Joel Kotkin) to settle there to live and work. Among the people we visited were bronze sculptor, wood carver, and equine geneticist Marco A. Ovieda (one of the photos shows one of the rare mammoth donkeys he breeds). We also visited Plaza del Cerro, the ancient dilapidated defensive square that still stands at the heart of Chimayo, as well as Galeria Ortega, the weaving shop of one of the two great weaving families of Chimayo (the others are the Trujillos). We also visited the Santuario de Chimayo itself and the Santo Nino Chapel, the Chimayo Museuma and the Ortega Family museum. A member of the Ortega family also allowed us to see the interior of the Ortega family's private Oratorio, or prayer chapel, on the Plaza del Cerro, which has not been in use since the 1950s but which dates to the early 19th century (see photo).