fiestas patronales!

So after almost a year in my site, I finally experienced our "fiestas patronales," which are the patron saint festivals. Every town has a patron saint, ours is the Virgin of Dolores, whose week is the week before Semana Santa (holy week).
Our patron saint festivals are a really big deal because the town is a pilgrimage site, and people come from all over the country (and even Guatemala and Honduras) to ask favors of the virgin. As the pictures above show, they wait for hours in lines to enter the church and pass in front of the virgin. The town changes completely in this week, and is full of a million food stands and really old rides (like the ferris wheel above) that are probably condemned in the U.S. and are now brought down to El Salvador to use in these festivals. They are terrifying to go on, not because the ride itself is scary, but because it really could fall apart at any minute. The whole thing is quite the event and it's amazing to see the town transform like this, and then just ask quickly all the vendors disappear and we are back to being the sleepy, little town in a forgotten corner of the country.